Redemption (Madness and Memory Part 2 )
by kate221b
Summary: John and Kate have been struggling to keep Sherlock's illness concealed from Mycroft for weeks, but now they need his help. Warnings for references to mental illness and suicide.
1. Chapter 1

She should have known, should have remembered that the danger time is not when people are at their lowest. It comes when they start to come back up towards the surface, and then feel themselves sinking again. When they remember how it felt to be drowning, and know with certainty that it could all happen again.

Everything had seemed calm, so calm. Sherlock had been quiet, but then he was often quiet these days. John was still spending the days with Sherlock, while Kate was back at work. They were both wary of leaving him alone, despite his protestations, 'baby-sitting,' he called it, but Kate knew that in reality he feared the silence of being left alone. He was frustrated at not being able to work, but a possible date for a return to cold cases was already being discussed with Ed Harris. There were still issues that he wouldn't or couldn't discuss, and his days were still split between therapy sessions and sleep. Seeing him immobile for long periods of the day seemed odd to Kate, but Ed Harris reassured her that it was Sherlock's ways of managing his symptoms and the side-effects of the medication. 'It will improve with time,' he told her, 'it's his way of coping, best not to interfere with that for now.'

She couldn't say what had woken her. The old fashioned alarm clock on the bedside table read ten past three. The bed beside her was cold and empty. She checked the bathroom and the kitchen. Both empty. His coat was gone, his phone when she rang it went unanswered. Panicked, she phoned John.

'John, he's gone. He must have found my keys.' She had taken to hiding her keys at night, just in case, but in retrospect the back of the cutlery drawer probably wasn't such an intelligent hiding place when you were dealing with a consulting detective.

'I'll be right up.'

She tried to track his phone on-line, but his account was of course, impossible to hack into. His phone was still ringing out. She sent him a string of text messages, with no reply.

'Where would he have gone?' she asked John. The look on his face said it all, neither of them knew where, but they both knew why.

'Mycroft,' Kate said suddenly, pulling out her phone. 'He'll be able to find him, won't he?'

Mycroft, unsurprisingly was up and working. He listened to Kate's hurried explanations in silence, then said only, 'Of course, I'll get my people onto it immediately.'

Kate barely had time to get dressed before he rang with information. 'He's at Barts, or rather his phone is. I'm on my way.'

'Christ, the roof,' said John

'Why not the lab,' said Kate, but even as the words came out of her mouth, she knew that he was right. Miraculously, they found a cab as they were running down the road.

'You try the lab, I'll go to the roof,' Kate said to John, as they ran into the building.

She found him huddled up in a corner, his dark coat blending into the shadows, having a furious conversation with himself. Safe, then, for now.

'Sherlock,' she said warily, suddenly wondering if he was sleepwalking again. She had found him wandering the flat with nightmares several times in the past few weeks.

His face, when he finally raised it off his knees to look at her told her everything. He shook his head slowly, as if speaking was too much effort. 'I can't Kate, I'm sorry,' was all that he would say.

She sat with him there, vaguely aware of flashing blue lights below, until John came running onto the roof from the fire door. Sherlock did not even seem to register his presence. John took his phone out of his pocket and silently lifted it up in question. Kate nodded in silent communication. 'Yes, tell Mycroft. Get some help up here. Keep him safe'.

Ten minutes later, Sherlock was being escorted off the roof. He held onto Kate like a life-raft. He hadn't spoken another word. If it hadn't been for that initial recognition, Kate could almost have believed him to be sleepwalking. Shut down, catatonic. She knew exactly what was happening to him.

Mycroft was waiting outside his car at the bottom and took a step towards them. Kate shook her head, as she and John maneuvered Sherlock into the waiting car.

'Sherlock, stay here with John, I'll be back in a minute,' she said softly. He sat back against the seat, eyes closed, unresponsive, trapped with his own demons.

She walked over to Mycroft. 'Thank you,' she said, quietly.

'How long, Kate?' he asked.

'Four weeks, a little more.'

'I warned you, Kate,' he said; the words spoken with sorrow, not with malice.

'I know. I told you that I would get him through it, and I am. John and I both are.'

'Is he getting help? Professional help?'

'Of course, but I don't think that it's enough, not anymore.'

'You could have asked for help before.'

'He didn't want you to know. He didn't want anyone to know. I'm sorry, Mycroft.'

'Will he let me help now?'

'I think so. I don't think that he has a choice, that we have a choice.'

Mycroft nodded. 'Who is his psychiatrist?' he asked.

'Ed Harris, I think that you know him.'

'Of course, he's a good man. He's looked after several of my employees in the past. I'll contact him. There is a clinic that the service uses, Ed Harris has admitting rights there. It would undoubtably be the best place for Sherlock to go.'

Kate hesitated, caught between the logic of what Mycroft was proposing and her desperate need to keep Sherlock safe with her.

'Kate, we have to keep him safe. You, I think, can no longer keep him safe. You have asked for my help tonight, let me help him.'

Kate was surprised at this rare expression of compassion from Mycroft. She had never seen any expression of love from either brother, and this was the closest to emotion she had ever seen Mycroft convey.

'He is my brother, Kate,' he said, with feeling. 'I won't stand by and watch him destroy himself.'

Not a threat, thought Kate, but an expression of concern. How interesting.

'He refused admission before,' she said, 'Ed Harris has suggested it many times, but now...'

'Now, he does not appear to be in a condition to refuse anything,' Mycroft said quietly. 'Still if Ed Harris can persuade him, then that would be simpler than a section. Although it wouldn't be the first time that it has come to that.'

'He told me,' Kate said quickly, then, 'I want to take him home, Mycroft, back to Baker Street. We'll contact Ed Harris from there, get him to come and see Sherlock and see what he says.'

'There is only one possible option, Kate,' Mycroft said quietly, 'Only one way to keep him safe.'

'I know,' Kate said, 'but not like this. Not in the middle of the night and without his consent. I want to get him back to a place that he knows and people that he trusts. He trusts Ed Harris, he'll take it better from him than from a stranger in an unfamiliar place.'

Mycroft looked at her with interest, as if he was processing her intent. Finally he said, 'My brother is very fortunate, Kate, to have found someone who cares for him as much as you do, but I won't have him put at risk.'

'Then put a guard outside the door, where we can call them if we need them,' Kate said, 'I'm not denying what needs to happen, Mycroft, I'm just trying to make it as gentle as possible for Sherlock.'

Mycroft nodded slightly, 'Very well,' he said, 'and I will have a car put at your disposal for tomorrow morning, to take him in the clinic. If there's anything that you need in the meantime, anything at all...'

'I'll call. Thank you, Mycroft,' Kate said, wondering why this display of compassion was threatening to reduce her to tears when nothing else had. She walked quickly back to the car where Sherlock and John were waiting.

...

He was silent on the way home, eyes closed, head resting against the back of the seat. John had procured a blanket from the paramedics, who Sherlock had refused to allow near him. The heating in the car was turned up full blast, but Sherlock's hand, when Kate reached for it, was still icy cold.

Arriving back at the flat, Kate tried to ignore the second car, which had followed them back, and was now parked outside 221B. Mycroft's guards, of course, but for once she was grateful for them. This time she wanted Sherlock watched, wanted him kept safe.

Sherlock walked silently into the flat and threw himself down onto the sofa; half sitting, half lying, head resting against the sofa back, eyes closed.

'You should get into bed,' Kate said gently, sitting on the sofa next to him. 'Try and warm up a bit, you're still freezing,' but he just shook his head and remained immobile. He didn't protest, however, when she placed a duvet over him, just remained immobile, eyes closed.

'Do you need anything? Lorazepam?' she asked, but he just shook his head. 'Shout if you want anything,' she said finally, when he remained silent, before going to join John in the kitchen. John slid the door almost shut behind her, leaving it open just enough to enable him to watch Sherlock while they talked.

'What did Mycroft say?' he asked quietly.

'He's organising his admission to the clinic that Ed Harris talked about for this morning. I gave him Ed Harris' name, but we ought to phone him first I suppose.'

John nodded, watching her face. 'It's the only option, Kate, you know that. When I think about how close it came..'

'I know, I know,' Kate said, sinking down into one of the kitchen chairs. 'But it came out of nowhere, John. Did you see this coming?'

'Not remotely,' John said, seating himself so that he could still see Sherlock, who hadn't moved since they had left him. Was he asleep? Possibly, although his breathing seemed too quiet for that. 'He seemed - fine,' John continued. 'A little quiet maybe, a little withdrawn, pre-occupied, but thats about it. I don't think that any of us could have seen this coming.'

'So what now?' Kate asked. 'I don't know how to raise the question of an admission with him.'

'And I don't think that you should. I'll phone Ed, get him to come round and see Sherlock. He needs him now more than he needs us. Look at him, Kate. Goodness only knows what's going on inside that head of his, and he's obviously not going to talk to us.'

Kate looked at her watch. 5.45am. 'Perhaps we should leave it a few hours,' she said hesitantly, but John shook his head. 'Ed needs to know now, Kate. Sherlock is his clinical responsibility after all, and if he'd carried through his plans tonight, then it would have been his head on the block in the coroner's court. Besides, better for him to hear it from us than from Mycroft.'


	2. Chapter 2

He felt removed, disconnected, as if everything was happening at a great distance, and he was watching it from some strange position inside his own head. He was dimly aware of Kate sitting next to him, and then of the long walk down off the roof, wanting only to sit down somewhere warm and quiet and still. There were too many people, too much noise, too much light. Then there were a vast array of flashing blue lights, what were they doing there? He let John guide him to a car, and the door was shut behind him. That was better, quieter, fewer people, but still cold, so cold. A blanket settled around his shoulders and he rested his head back and closed his eyes. The voices were quieter now, but still distracting; his fathers and others that he didn't recognise. They were talking, discussing him, why wouldn't they shut up? They were drowning out everything else; John's voice, trying to talk to him, even the sound of his own thoughts, until it became easier to just let them talk, and to retreat to that tiny corner of his mind that was still his. To sit and observe them passively, rather than trying to argue with them, or to interact with them.

Then Kate was there, and the car was moving. He no longer knew or cared where they were going. If he remained still, then the voices might forget that he was there. Still and quiet, that was the way He needed to be. Numbly he allowed himself be led out of the car and into 221B, throwing himself down onto the nearest available surface, letting Kate take off his coat and his shoes and wrap something warm around him. He wanted to talk to her, to tell her how sorry he was, but it was impossible. He could only sit, relishing the warmth and the softness of the sofa cushions against his cheek. He couldn't think about this anymore; what he had wanted to do, what he still wanted to do, or did he? He just wanted it all to stop. He wanted peace and whiteness and absolute silence.

Time lost its meaning as he sat there, trapped in a strange twilight world between sleep and waking, unsure of what was real and what was dreams, or the product of his own mind, until a soft voice said, 'Hello, Sherlock.'

Gentle, understanding. He knew that voice, but from where? Reluctantly he opened his eyes and blinked to focus, trying to remember where he had seen this man before. Edward Harris, of course.

He licked his lips, which suddenly felt like sandpaper. 'I'm sorry,' he whispered.

'You have nothing to apologise for,' Ed Harris told him. 'Can you tell me what happened?'

Sherlock shook his head slowly, closing his eyes again. Ed Harris allowed him a few minutes of silence, before asking gently, 'What do you want, Sherlock.'

'I want it to stop,' he said, eyes still closed. 'All of it.'

'Voices?' came the gentle enquiry.

He nodded, slowly.

'Did you stop taking the haloperidol?'

He nodded again. 'Sorry,' he whispered, eyes still closed.

'Can you tell me why?'

Sherlock shook his head slightly, acutely aware again of the texture of the sofa back against his face. Everything felt amplified, sounds were suddenly clicking back into place; the sound of the clock on the mantlepiece was almost deafening, the weight of the duvet around his shoulders threatening to drag him into the very substance of the sofa.

Then there was a hand on his shoulder. 'Try some slow deep breaths,' it said. He did and everything faded back to grey, the noises faded to their normal level, he felt calmer.

'You need to be admitted,' the voice said calmly. 'This morning, if you'll agree to it.'

He wanted to protest, but suddenly he was too tired to care. And the promised clinic, with its white walls, and calm silence had lost its terror. He nodded slightly.

'I don't - care,' he said quietly. 'I just want to sleep, but I can't. They won't let me.'

'The voices?'

He nodded again. 'You can sleep at the clinic,' Ed Harris' voice said. 'Will you take some medication now? It would help, I think.'

He shook his head, unable to find the words to explain that he was too afraid. That medication might make him lose the little control that was left to him, that it didn't feel safe; not here, not with John and Kate so close. Because if the voices gained control he was afraid of what he might do, of the monster that he might become. If he stayed silent and quiet he could control it, but if he let his concentration slip for just a second - no, the risk was too great.

'I'll make some phone calls,' Ed Harris was saying, with a final reassuring squeeze on his shoulder, and then he was gone, and there were just the voices and the inside of his own head all over again.


	3. Chapter 3

'He's agreed to an admission,' Ed Harris told Kate and John as he walked back into the kitchen where they were waiting. 'Not that a section would have been a problem, but still, it's easier this way.'

'Did he tell you why?' Kate asked. 'The roof I mean, not the admission.'

'He's saying very little, he's too shut down for that, but it would appear that he stopped taking the haloperidol and the auditory hallucinations are back. I would say that his voices had a lot to do with it.'

Kate frowned slightly, swallowed hard, and then nodded, not trusting herself to speak.

'He's safe, Kate,' Ed Harris told her gently, 'that's what is important. He didn't carry through with his plans. This was entirely unpredictable, it was nobody's fault and he is safe. Now we just need to get him the care that he needs.'

'How soon can you arrange it?' she asked.

'As soon as possible - this morning, certainly. I phoned the clinic on my way over here to let them know it was likely that he'd need a bed. I just need to make a call to check that they've got the staff in place, and then we can get him over there straight away. The sooner the better from the look of him.'

'He's so - silent,' Kate said.

'His head is a busy place,' Ed Harris said. 'too much so to engage with us at the moment, The sooner that we can switch that off with medication, the better.'

'He won't take anything,' Kate told him, 'I've tried.'

'As have I. He's afraid of losing what little control he has left, I think. He'll feel safer at the clinic.'

...

It all happened quickly, almost too quickly. Ed Harris made a few phone calls, while Kate packed a bag, and less than an hour later they were racing through the North London streets towards the clinic, on roads which were almost surreally empty at that time on a Sunday morning. Sherlock remained silent, looking dazed when Kate told him that it was time to go. Compliantly, he allowed her to help him back into his shoes and coat, willingly taking a seat between her and John in the car. Quiet, too quiet. She found it unnerving and wondered what would happen when his silence finally broke. Ed Harris had seen them into the car, before heading for his office to retrieve Sherlock's medical notes; promising to meet them at the clinic later.

Kate couldn't fail to be impressed as the car took them through a set of electronic wrought iron gates and down a sweeping drive, to arrive in front of an impressive looking Victorian building.

'I told you,' John said, gauging her expression. 'Its not exactly your standard psychiatric hospital. He'll be well looked after here, Kate.'

Kate shot a glance at Sherlock, still silent and immobile, but when she squeezed his hand, there was a slight curling of his fingers in hers. 'We're here,' she said quietly, and he nodded slightly, looking relieved, if anything, as he walked up the steps and into the cool marble interior of the entrance hall.

They were shown into an interview room, where Sherlock silently took a seat on one of the sofas, still holding Kate's hand, and resumed what had become his customary position; head resting against the back of the sofa, eyes closed. He looked exhausted, Kate thought, as well he might after the night that he'd had. John took up a seat in a chair next to Kate. He looked exhausted too; the last few weeks had aged them all. He gave Kate an encouraging smile, and she suddenly found herself close to tears. Ridiculous after all that they had been through to be falling apart now, but this felt an awful lot like defeat. She wanted this part over with. She wanted Sherlock safe, and looked after, and then she wanted to go home and to curl up under the duvet at 221b and sleep until this nightmare went away.

The door clicked and opened, making Kate and John jump. Only Sherlock remained motionless, too preoccupied with his voices to react to external stimuli. A nurse dressed in the clinic uniform of white tunic and blue trousers walked in, carrying a clip board. Blonde hair clipped up efficiently in a pony tail, late twenties, possibly early thirties, she looked like someone who knew her job well and could deal with whatever it threw at her without allowing so much as a hair to come out of place. Kate felt her shoulders fall. Ed Harris had been right; this was absolutely the place that Sherlock needed to be, and if this nurse was representative of the rest of the clinic staff, then they would be able to handle him in exactly the way that he needed.

'Sherlock Holmes?' she asked. Sherlock remained motionless and silent, not acknowledging her presence in any way other than another slight tightening of his fingers against Kate's. She looked at him, concerned, but his face remained blank. It was left to John to acknowledge the nurse, and to introduce himself and Kate.

The nurse considered Sherlock for a split second, then walking across to where he sat, squatted in front of him and laid a gentle hand on his spare arm. 'Sherlock, my name is Anna. I'm one of the nurses here and I'll be looking after you for the next few days. Listen, I know that you're really tired and that you probably just want to sleep, but I need to go through some admission questions with you before we can take you to your room. Can you bear with me for maybe ten minutes, so that we can get this done?'

Interesting, Kate thought. She knows that he's not an idiot and she's not treating him as one, but at the same time she's pitching this at exactly the level that he's able to take in at the moment, without patronising him. She's also bypassing me and John, making him the centre of this, letting him stay in control.

Sherlock opened his eyes and looked at her, then nodded, almost imperceptibly.

'Do you need anything? Some medication until we can get you to your room?'

He shook his head and looked down. 'He's been refusing to take anything,' Kate said.

'That's your choice, for now,' Anna told him, 'but let me know if it gets too much. Would you find it easier if I got Kate and John to answer the questions, where they can?'

Again that almost imperceptible nod and a slight squeeze of Kate's hand. 'It's okay,' she whispered to him.

'If you need anything at any point, just let me know,' Anna told him, 'We'll get through this as quickly a possible and then we can get you to your room and get you some decent sedation.'

Again the slight nod of the head, but nothing else.

Anna gave him another minute or so, hand still resting lightly on his arm, making sure that he had nothing else to add. 'Thank you,' he finally said quietly, and Anna took her hand away and went to sit on the adjacent chair.

The questions were basic to start with. Date of birth, address, GP, next of kin and contact numbers, then previous medical history, drug history, allergies and moving on to his psychiatric history. Anna had most of information from Dr Harris she explained, but needed to complete the forms from a nursing perspective, to give her a fuller picture of the background. Kate told her what they knew about Sherlock's time in Elmhurst, keeping it as brief and factual as possible, watching the tension grow in his face as she did so, although he remained silent.

In the end it was Anna who said, 'Sherlock, I'm going to go and get you some medication.'

'I'm okay,' he said dully, not opening his eyes.

'Your body language says that you're finding this difficult, and I would like to make it easier for you. I need to talk to you about the events surrounding your admission to make a risk assessment, and it would be better for you to be calm enough to do that.'

He nodded slightly, and Anna left the room, returning a few minutes later with a pot of tablets, which Sherlock swallowed without even looking at them. There were new ones in there that Kate didn't recognise, but now was not the time to question it, and there was a relief at allowing someone else to take charge, especially someone with this capacity to detect Sherlock's mood so quickly, and from such minimal cues.

Anna went briefly through the details of Sherlock's recent illness and the events of last night, before turning again to Sherlock.

'This is a voluntary admission, Sherlock, but to facilitate that I need you to agree to stay here for a minimum of twenty eight days for assessment and treatment. Do you consent to that?'

He frowned, and turned his head slightly as if listening and considering and then as if with a wrench, nodded.

'What are they saying?' Anna asked gently. 'The voices?'

'Horrible things,' he said, so quietly that Kate could hardly hear him even from his position next to her.

'Things about me, about the clinic?' Anna asked.

He nodded.

'Do you think that they're true?' she asked.

'I don't know,' he whispered, sitting forward now, eyes fixed on the floor. 'I just -' he paused unable to continue.

'You want it to stop?' she asked. 'We can give you that here. We can sedate you, switch off the voices, let you sleep. Is that what you want?'

He nodded, miserably, still staring at the floor. So quiet, so defeated, Kate thought. So very different from his normal self.

'I need you to sign the admission form,' Anna said, handing him the clipboard and then a pen; slowly, carefully, every movement careful judged so as not to startle him. He stared at the form, and Kate got the distinct impression that the two halves of his brain were doing battle with each other.

'Sign it Sherlock, please,' Kate said quietly from beside him. He looked at her properly for the first time since he had been on the roof, and in his eyes she saw fear, and confusion, and something that she had rarely seen there before - uncertainty. 'Trust me,' she said quietly, squeezing his hand. And slowly, reluctantly, he took the pen from her and signed the form.

'Thank you,' Anna said as Kate handed the clipboard back to her. As if on cue there was a knock on the door, and a porter with a wheelchair came into the room at Anna's soft, 'Come in.'

'I can walk,' Sherlock said wearily with just a hint of his old stubborness.

'I know that you can walk,' Anna said, 'but I would prefer you to go in the chair.'

He shook his head, as if too tired to voice his objections.

'Sherlock you're exhausted,' Anna said gently, 'and you've had a lot of medication. Let us look after you. Just for a little while, just until you're well.'

Kate squeezed his hand again to show that she agreed and slowly, reluctantly he got up and got into the wheelchair.

'Thank you,' Anna said softly. 'Now, Kate, why don't you come and see Sherlock settled. John, if you stay here, Ed Harris will be along shortly and wants a word.'


	4. Chapter 4

There were corridors, long, white corridors, almost impossibly light and bright, making him squint and increasing the pounding in his head. Then doors, so many doors and locks. He found that strangely reassuring, the knowledge that he couldn't get out of this place, even if he wanted to. He had been so afraid of this, of a place like Elmhurst, but this was nothing like Elmhurst. That had been old, musty, painted almost entirely in insitutional green. This place was white, sparklingly white and chrome, all curved lines and soft edges. The staff were all immaculately dressed in beautifully ironed uniforms, like crew members in one of those science fiction shows that John used to favour and he had enjoyed finding flaws in the science in. 'Clones, robots,' the voices in his head whispered and he wearily told them to stop being ridiculous.

Kate was there, holding his hand as he was pushed down the corridor at a speed that made his head spin, or maybe that was the medication. He hadn't recognised all of the tablets that he had taken, but something was making everything blur at the edges; not unpleasantly so, but he was glad for the security of the wheelchair around him. The seat, the back, the arms, encasing him, holding him safe, holding him together. Without it he had a strange sensation that he might just come apart. He felt insubstantial, a mist-like form of himself, as if last night he had done what he intended and was now just a ghostly imprint of his former self. He blinked hard against the sensation, and noted Kate's concerned glance. Beautiful Kate, how to tell her that much as he appreciated her concern, he found it almost painful in its intensity. He hated knowing that he was hurting her, that what he had done last night had hurt her, but it was written all over her face. As she always said, she would make a dreadful poker player. She was incapable of concealing her emotions.

It would be better here. Cleaner, more sterile, less people to worry about harming. Somewhere to sleep and to wait for it to stop hurting. Kate and John seemed to think that he was coming here to get well, but that was past him now, he knew with absolute conviction, and the voices backed up his belief. This was the best that he could hope for now. Peace and silence and enough drugs to let him sleep for days at a time.

They arrived finally at a room with a number on it, but his brain could not make it into any logical form. Anna used a fingerprint recognition device to open the door; little chance of escape then, good. They went through an antechamber lined with cupboards through a second door. A bed, a chair, a desk. All very clean, very new, very sterile. Voices whispered against operating theatres and procedures and again, he wearily told them to stop.

Almost without registering what he was doing, he got out of the wheelchair and sat on the bed, at Anna's calm instructions. People were talking - Kate, Anna and another nurse who had arrived in the room, but their words made little sense. He let Kate take off his shoes, and wearily stripped off his clothes, putting on the proffered t-shirt and pajama trousers. How odd, they looked like his, had they come from home? He had no recollection of bringing a bag with him, so how then had they appeared?

He was being asked to get into bed, and Anna was there with a blood pressure cuff. Suddenly inexplicably, he felt panic rise from deep within his subconscious. Half of his brain was screaming at him to get out, the other half calmly observing his own reaction and marking it as ridiculous. Confused he looked up at Kate, trying to reunite the two halves of his brain, to force his suddenly immobile limbs into action. Then her arms were around him, holding him safe, and murmuring in his ear, 'It's okay, you can do this.'

He wanted to tell her that it wasn't a difficult thing to do at all, that it was an act of failure, not of bravery to allow this, but the words wouldn't come. Instead he wearily swung his legs up into the bed, and allowed Anna to tuck the sheets in around him, dispassionately watching the other nurse carry the clothes that he had arrived in away. He chose to ignore the voices screaming that this was his last chance to chose freedom, while Anna checked his blood pressure, his temperature, his oxygen saturations. It was all so unbearably familiar from the early stages of his illness, but then it had been Kate and John, and not these strangers performing these oddly intimate tasks.

This was what he had wanted, wasn't it? So why now was it suddenly so hard? Then there was a scratch in the back of his left hand, as Anna inserted a cannula and he resisted the urge to pull his hand away. She smiled at him reassuringly. 'Home straight now,' she told him. 'I just need to take some blood and then we can give you some sedation.'

There seemed to be vial after vial of blood, and then finally the syringes of medication. He looked at Kate, now on the other side of the bed, 'Will you stay? ' he asked, suddenly lucid and a little scared. He felt like his sixteen year old self all over again, afraid of going to sleep in this strange place, of waking up not knowing where he was or why. 'Until I'm asleep, will you stay?'

'Of course,' she told him calmly, reaching over to drop a gentle kiss on his forehead, the sort of kiss that a mother would give a child, and then his eyes grew heavy, the room began to blur round the edges and despite everything, he felt himself sliding into sleep.


	5. Chapter 5

Kate angrily blinked away the threatening tears, as Sherlock's breathing slowed and he slept at last. He looked dreadful, she observed with clinican's eyes, seeing him for the first time as the clinic staff would see him. There were bruise-like shadows under his eyes, despite all of the sleep that he had been getting recently. He looked gaunt and pale, his lips dry and cracked. He was probably dehydrated; how had she not noticed that?

'He's safe now,' Anna said gently, 'we'll look after him from here.'

She nodded, not trusting herself to speak. To her surprise, Anna came round to her side of the bed and enfolded her in a hug, which she gladly returned, allowing a few more tears to escape while her face was hidden in the shoulder of Anna's tunic.

'You've done an amazing job,' Anna told her. 'Getting him so far, getting him to agree to this. Now it's time to let someone else take the strain for a while.' She handed Kate a tissue from a box that had miraculously appeared, and Kate wiped her face and blew her nose noisily.

'Sorry,' she said, 'it's just seeing him like this -'

'We'll take good care of him,' Anna told her. 'Chloe, can you stay with Sherlock while I take Kate back to the interview room?'

'Of course,' the other nurse smiled at her, as she checked Sherlock's oxygen saturations and blood pressure again. 'He'll sleep for a while now. You look as if you could do with some rest yourself.'

'It's been a rough night,' Kate murmured, as she let Anna lead her back through a bewildering array of corridors to the interview room where John was waiting.

'You okay?' he asked, as she walked in.

She nodded, grateful for his comforting hug all the same. 'He's sedated,' she told him, as she took a seat on the sofa beside him. 'He seems very calm, surprisingly calm.'

'He knows that he needs to be here,' Anna said, taking up her original seat opposite them again. 'He's too tired to fight his illness anymore, and he's happy to let us take that responsibility for a while. It's when he starts to get better that the fun will start.'

John's lips curved up into a smile, despite everything. 'You seem to have worked him out fairly well for someone who's just met him,' he said.

'I have the benefit of Dr Harris' experience with Sherlock as well, don't forget.'

'Has he been in? Ed Harris, I mean?' Kate asked John.

'He popped in briefly earlier,' John said. 'He's gone to write up drug charts and brief the medical staff. He said that he'd be in later to talk to both of us.'

'I thought that it might be useful if I told you a little about the protocol from here in the meantime,' Anna was saying. 'Sherlock is currently under close observation. That's standard practice for most new admissions, but last night's events also classify him as being at high risk of further self-harm. We'll have a nurse in the room with him at all times when he's awake. When he's asleep, we'll watch him from the monitor room next door, and we can be in the room with him in under a minute. He won't be left alone, and he won't be at any risk.'

'I think that he's too shut down to do anything at the moment anyway,' Kate said.

'For now, yes, but fear can be a powerful motivator,' Anna said, 'and from what I've seen so far his mood can change rapidly. Panic, fear, anxiety, paranoia. He's experienced the onset of all of these within seconds, even within the brief time that I've had to observe him.'

'How do you know?' Kate asked in wonder. She had picked up on all of those apart from the paranoia, but how had Anna managed it?

'His body language, his facial expressions; we're very good at reading people here,' Anna told her. 'There's no magic to it. Some of it's taught, some of it you pick up with experience. Many of our patients talk little when they first come in to us, so you have to get very good at picking up non-verbal clues. When you have a patient like Sherlock who finds it difficult to talk about his emotions at the best of times, then it becomes even more important.'

'Ed has briefed you well,' John murmured.

'He told me about Sherlock weeks ago,' Anna admitted with a smile, then at Kate's expression of surprise. 'It's how it works here, didn't he tell you? They try to match a patient to a primary nurse before they're admitted. We're the people who see them on admission and stay with them for day shifts at least until we consider them stable enough to be left in someone else's care. We oversee their care plan, attend clinical decision meetings, liase with their psychiatrist and other staff members, and if all goes well then we follow them up at home for as long as they need us.'

'The ultimate continuity of care,' Kate said in wonder. 'You wouldn't get that on the NHS.'

'It doesn't always work out,' Anna said, 'sometimes there's a personality clash, but generally patients find it reassuring to be looked after by the same people, especially with the client base that we deal with. Trust doesn't tend to come easily to them.'

'Or to Sherlock,' Kate said quietly.

'Exactly,' Anna said, watching her face, then almost abruptly, 'I know that this must be hard for you, Kate. You and John have looked after Sherlock for so long; letting go of that control can't be easy.'

'Actually, its a relief,' Kate said with a frown. 'I was terrified that something would happen to him, that somehow what we were doing wouldn't be enough, but he wouldn't contemplate talking to anyone else. He wouldn't even see a CPN or a psychologist. Just Ed Harris and us.'

'That's why Ed Harris talked to me initially,' Anna told her. 'He wanted me to come to meet Sherlock as a CPN, in the hope that if he did need admission then he would have a familiar face to look after him; or more to the point, that it might convince him that an admission would be in his best interest.'

They were interrupted by a knock on the door, and then Ed Harris himself was there, shaking hands all round, and then with a slightly concerned glance at Kate, asking, 'How are you holding up?'

'I'm okay,' she said with a grateful smile for his concern. 'I'm just relieved that he's safe; and this place,' she looked around at the cool, clean lines of the interview room. 'it's exactly what he needs, you were right.'

'I'm not going to pretend that it's going to be plain sailing,' Ed Harris told her. 'There will be setbacks even here, I'm sure, but it's what he needs. If I'm honest I think that it's what he's always needed; it's just taken a long time for him to be able to see that.'

'If John and I hadn't tried to keep him at home initially, if we'd allowed him to be admitted, then do you think-' Kate hesitated, but to her relief Ed Harris shook his head.

'He wasn't ready, Kate. He would have found it extremely difficult if he had woken up here, with all of his parnoia and delusions. It would have taken a long time for him to learn to trust the staff. No, I strongly believe that you and John did what was best for him at the time.'

Kate felt the reassuring squeeze of John's fingers against hers. 'You can't blame yourself for what happened, Kate,' he said quietly. 'He was getting better, we all thought that.'

'So what changed?' Kate asked Ed Harris. 'Why did this happen?'

'Another mood cycle, I suspect,' Ed Harris said, 'I was aware that the underlying diagnosis was probably rapidly cycling bipolar, although Sherlock has resisted all attempts at formal testing. From what you and John have told me, and indeed Sherlock himself, his mood can rise or fall over the space of twenty-four hours or so even when he's relatively well. I think that is exactly what happened. His mood dropped, so the voices returned, and it all got very dangerous, very quickly.'

'But the medication that he's on,' Kate said, 'that should have helped, surely.'

'He's refused any kind of mood stabiliser, so the medication wouldn't have helped the cycling. The antidepressants have helped his baseline mood, but they obviously haven't protected him from the lows as well as I would have hoped. The antipsychotics - who knows. He either hasn't been taking them, or they're not the right ones for him.'

'But the voices had gone,' John said. 'How does that work?'

'it would appear that it was the haloperidol that was controlling the auditory hallucinations, not the other other antipsychotic. When he stopped taking that, then they returned. It's not a disaster, we can re-juggle his medication while he's in here much more safely than we could in the community.'

'Lithium?' John asked.

'Would be the most effective treatment certainly, but I wanted to know how you both felt about that, knowing Sherlock's own previous refusal of it.'

'He hates lithium,' Kate said dully.

'But it is undoubtably the most effective treatment for the severity of his illness,' Ed Harris persisted. 'It's an old fashioned drug certainly, but it would help the depression and the mood cycling; get him functioning again.'

'I think that we're out of options and should go for it,' John said. 'How about risperidone, would that work? For the auditory hallucinations, I mean.'

'That would be my other suggestion, and switch the olanzapine to quetiapine,' Ed Harris said. 'That should help both the depression and the psychosis. I think that we should hit this hard, while the sedation is there to reduce his awareness of side effects. By the time that he comes off sedation in a week or so, then the medication should be starting to take effect. Kate? Do you agree?'

'It's Sherlock's decision, surely.'

'You've seen him, Kate,' Ed Harris said kindly. 'He's not capable of making an informed decision about anything at the moment. We're going to have to make this decision for him.'

'Then give him whatever will get him well,' Kate said, after a moment's consideration. 'You're right, we've tried the soft option. When I think about what could have happened last night -'

'Its an aggressive illness, Kate,' Ed Harris said, 'Just look at the statistics. Something approximating a fifty percent risk of a significant suicidal attempt, with an eight percent lifetime risk of completed suicide. Lithium reduces that risk. For that reason alone it has to be our best option.'

'Did he try before?' John asked, 'At Elmhurst?'

'He says no, but then his memory of that time is patchy to say the least. Now that he's here, and his brother is aware of his illness, I see no reason not to try to obtain his old notes. They might explain a number of things that Sherlock himself is unable to fully remember, or piece together.'

'Has Mycroft contacted you?' Kate asked.

'Not long after John phoned me this morning. He's very concerned, but I've told him that I can't give him any specific details without Sherlock's consent.'

'And he took that without an argument?' John asked, dryly.

'Surprisingly, yes, although I suspect that he will contact you later, John, for details. Whether you give them to him or not is up to you.'

John looked at Kate in question. 'I don't think that Sherlock would mind him knowing,' she said, 'not now. I told him most of it last night, anyway. Tell him what you want, John. I'd rather he heard it from us, than starts doing his own digging.'

'As I say, that's entirely your decision,' Ed Harris told them, 'but from the clinic staff's perspective, you two will be the only people who will be given direct information about Sherlock's clinical condition. Once Sherlock has recovered enough to give his consent, then we can discuss who else he is happy to have that information shared with.'

'Thank you,' Kate said quietly, then asked, 'what now? I presume that he'll sleep for a while. Should we go home, come back later, or is there anything else that you need us for?'

'I would suggest that you both go home and get some rest,' Ed Harris said. 'Anna will contact you if there are any problems, or anything else that she needs to know, but I wouldn't anticipate any. We'll keep him sedated as I say, for the next few days at least. Then we can see where we are.'


	6. Chapter 6

Waking, Sherlock experienced a lurch of disorientation. He was in a white, featureless room. He was lying in a bed that wasn't his own, with crisp white sheets. For one horrible moment, he thought that he was back in Elmhurst, the scene of so many of his nightmares; but he was awake, and this room was different. There was a window opposite him, but the blind was down, giving him no clues. Lifting his hand to rub his face, he found a length of plastic tubing attached. This was familiar too. Memories, so many memories, and worst of it all this black, thick despair that was so familiar from before.

'You're awake,' came a soft voice, and turning carefully, aware of the tubing going into his hand, he saw a nurse in a white uniform, walking over from a desk to come and stand by the bed.

'Where am I?' he asked.

'In the Northwood Clinic,' the nurse told him. 'Don't you remember?'

'Not a thing,' he said, intrigued by his lack of panic at that. He felt very distant from everything that was happening to him, an external observer of his own mind.

'You've had a lot of sedation,' the nurse said calmly. 'It interferes with short-term memory sometimes. It should come back.'

He closed his eyes again against the rush of memories that this bought. Elmhurst, waking disorientated after ECT, being told that his memory should return. It hadn't then, would it this time?'

'Sherlock, this isn't Elmhurst,' the nurse was saying gently. Ah, the paranoia; there it was. He remembered that from before too. The voices whispering that this nurse was reading his mind, that she knew what he was thinking, that she was part of the conspiracy to make him believe that he was ill, that this was real.

'You're safe here,' she was saying, and he believed her. It felt safe, it felt calm, despite everything, and he no longer had the energy to want to be anywhere else. He no longer cared about anything other than being able to lie in this bed, and sleep, and to stop thinking.

'Where's Kate?' he asked finally.

'She went home,' the nurse told him. 'I can phone her if you want, get her to come and see you?'

But he shook his head as the blackness rushed in, catching him by surprise. Defeat then, the voices whispered. Something must have happened to bring him here. Something painful for both of them, something that he was trying very hard to forget. He swallowed hard, trying to suppress the memories.

'You need to sleep,' the nurse was saying, hand on his shoulder, and he realised that he had curled up on himself, arms wrapped round his head, as if trying to hide from the images that were now flooding in. He wanted to tell her that he needed it to stop, but she seemed to know. A gentle hand was uncapping the cannula in his hand, and the voices in his head faded into the distance, images becoming blurred. Sedation, he realised, she's given me more sedation, and then the noises in the room faded too, and finally he slept.


	7. Chapter 7

Mycroft's car was waiting for them at the door of the clinic when they went to leave. John looked at Kate in question. 'Its better than a taxi, I suppose,' she shrugged, 'I'm not sure that I can cope with an overly cheerful cabby this morning. At least it will get us home, with minimum fuss, and at the moment that sounds very appealing.'

They sat in silence for a while, both looking out of the windows on their own sides of the car, caught up in their own thoughts. 'All those people, leading their little lives, completely oblivious to what we've been though,' Kate thought. 'Not realising how lucky they are to have their loved ones safe, and well, and with them.'

John waited until she finally turned away from the window and sat back in her seat, head back, eyes closed for a second in an unconscious parody of Sherlock's own position only hours before, and reached across to squeeze her hand. 'You okay?' he asked.

Kate opened her eyes and nodded slightly. 'I'm not sure I know what I feel,' she said finally,' then looking at John's enquiring face, 'How about you.'

'Relief,' John said finally, 'I feel relieved, as you said to Anna at the clinic. He's safe, and he's not our responsibility any more, and there's a comfort in that.' He paused, 'We tried everything that we possibly could to keep him at home,' he said finally, 'and we failed - no, I don't mean that, I mean that I don't think.' He paused gathering his thoughts, 'I mean that despite everything that we did, his illness was too severe. He has to be in the clinic now, there's no other choice, and he'll be well looked after there.'

Kate nodded, looking down. 'I know,' she said finally. 'Thats how I feel too. I'll miss him, and I wish more than anything else in the world that it hadn't come to this, but I'm glad that he's someone else's responsibility now, for a while at least.'

'You've been amazing, Kate,' John said quietly. 'I don't think that anyone else could have got him so far.'

'A psychiatric inpatient, you mean?' she said, attempting sarcasm, but realising that she just sounded bitter in the process.

'He agreed to it,' John said, softly. 'I never thought that he would do that. He agreed to an admission. And he didn't jump. Because of you.'

She nodded again. 'I'm too tired to think about this now,' she said, pushing her hair back from her face. 'I just want to go home, and sleep.'

And sleep she did, deeply, dreamlessly; the sleep of the exhausted, woken only by the ringing of her mobile phone when the light outside had already faded from grey to black. Reaching for her phone on the bedside table, she clumsily knocked it to the floor with drowsy fingers, and hauling it back up by the charger cable found a missed call from a witheld number. Seconds later it bleeped with a voicemail - Anna, telling her that everything was fine, but asking her to phone when she was free.

Walking into the sitting room, yawning, she dialed the clinic's number, already in her mobile phone from earlier, and was put through to Anna.

'Sorry, I was asleep,' she said. 'How is he?'

'He's doing okay. He woke up briefly a couple of hours ago. He's a little disorientated, and he's struggling to cope with the voices, so we've sedated him again, and that will be the plan for the next few days. Allow the sedation to wear off for brief periods of time, enough to let him to register where he is, drink if he's able to, tell us if he needs anything, but let him sleep for the majority of the time.'

'What about medication?' Kate asked.

'I haven't pushed it for today. We'll try to get him to start taking it in the morning, but he needs to learn to trust us first. He seems quite paranoid, Kate, was that a feature before?'

'Not really,' Kate told her, frowning to remember. 'There were times I think, when his voices said things about me, and about John, but he never believed them.'

Because he trusts you. That will be an issue then, I think. We might need your help, and John's to persuade him that we are what we say we are, and to get his cooperation.'

'Of course, whatever you need. Is there any point in my coming to see him this evening?'

'He's likely to sleep for some time, but if you want to come and see him, check for yourself that he's doing okay, then you can come at anytime.'

'No, I think I'll leave it for today then,' Kate said wearily. 'I'll come in the morning, before my late shift, that is unless..'

'Work sounds like a good distraction,' Anna said gently. 'We'll take good care of Sherlock, and he's not going to up to much sensible conversation for a while. If you and John can pop in regularly, if only for half an hour, then he'll find that reassuring, having someone familiar there, but you'll have to be prepared for the fact that it might just be half an hour of watching him sleeping.'

'Its like patients on intensive care,' Kate said, not thinking, 'relatives come and sit with them, and watch them sleep, and you're never sure if the patients know that they're there or not.'

'He'll know,' Anna said calmly, 'patients here aren't anaesthetised, remember, the sedation level is much lighter, and familiar voices are reassuring too.'

'I'll come tomorrow then,' Kate said. 'Thank you, Anna, and if there's any change overnight, if he needs me.'

'Then we'll phone, of course,' Anna assured her.

A few minutes later there was a soft knock on the door. 'I thought I heard you moving about,' John said, as she took off the lock and let him in. 'I'm cooking dinner if you want some.'

'Give me ten minutes to have a shower, and I'll come down,' Kate said.

'Did Mycroft phone?' she asked, when she was sitting on John's sofa some twenty minutes later, watching him cook.

'Of course,' John said. 'But he's being surprisingly well behaved. He told me a little about Elmhurst though. Did you know that Sherlock was sectioned for his admission there? Sounds as if they brought in the heavy squad; they had to call the police to pin him down and sedate him at home in the end. He wasn't going to go quietly.'

'I knew that he was sectioned,' Kate said, 'not the rest. He always says that his memory of Elmhurst is patchy, I presume because of the sedation.'

'Perhaps,' John said, 'but there's a lot in that, isn't there? I have a horrible suspicion that what happened to him there will have a huge impact on what happens now.'

Kate sighed, 'It's the one thing that he'll never talk about. But it'll be in his notes won't it? Ed Harris said that he'd try to get hold of them know. I can't imagine that Mycroft will object, and if we know what happened before, then at least we can help him to deal with it.'

'Why do I get the feeling that it can't possibly that simple?' John asked.


	8. Chapter 8

The voices were muttering before he even opened his eyes. Telling him that he needed to get out, to escape from this place. Two guards they told him, masquerading as nurses, but they would not listen to his requests to leave. Force was the only way; regrettable, but necessary. He was being falsely imprisoned, they told him; a plan born of layer upon layer of conspiracy and careful planning. Moriarty had done this. Moriarty back from the dead; how many lives did this man have? Twice he had seen him die, and yet he was behind this yet again. Swiftly he sat up; then sat, swaying slightly on the side of the bed, as dizziness assaulted him. What had they given him to make him feel so drugged? Barbiturates maybe, why couldn't he remember? Something was tethering his right arm to the bed, he tugged on it and felt something snap, then a warm trickle down his arm that he chose to ignore. Free at last. He was wearing a t-shirt and pajama trousers. He looked round for a coat or a dressing gown, but there was no clothing in the room, just a desk and chair in the corner, both bolted to the floor.

A soft click of the door and a woman dressed in a nurse's uniform came in, but the voices told him exactly what she was, screaming now; telling him to get out, get past her. The nurse was speaking to him, but her words made no sense. He braced himself and prepared to push past her to the door, but his legs crumpled as he tried to stand, and he fell. She caught him and lowered him to the ground, still talking softly, gently. The dizziness was getting worse, and he closed his eyes against the sensation and the voices. 'I can't,' he told them, and there was relief in that, in being unable to do what they were asking him to do.

This person, this nurse, if that was what she was, sitting with her arms around him, now, reaching up to the bed for a pillow to put under his head, seemed kind. Not a guard after all then. Perhaps the voices were wrong. 'Help is on its way,' she told him gently, 'just stay where you are for now, and we'll get you back to bed in a minute.'

Hazily he looked up at her, blinking. This was a clinic, he remembered, someone had told him that it was a clinic. It wasn't a prison, the voices were wrong. 'Lies!' they screamed. 'You need to trust us, don't believe their lies.' But he was tired, so tired; too tired to fight them, too tired to fight anybody. 'Sorry,' he murmured, not sure if he was apologising to them or the nurse, perhaps both.'

Then there were hands, many hands, lifting his unresisting body back into bed. The mattress and sheets were almost unbearably soft as he sank back into them, then there was the sharp scratch of a needle in his arm and he felt himself falling headlong into blackness, but he no longer cared.


	9. Chapter 9

'How was the night?' Anna asked Helen, the night nurse as she walked into the monitor room the next morning, her trained eye quickly picking up on the camera images of Sherlock's sleeping form in the room next door.

'He tried to get out of bed at about four, pulled out his cannula, would have ended up in a heap on the floor if I hadn't caught him in time. Other than that it was fine.'

'Was he aggressive?'

'No, he seemed more bewildered than anything else. I don't think that he knew where he was. He even apologised. We got him back to bed and gave him some more sedation, and he's been sleeping ever since.'

'Voices, do you think?'

'Possibly, its difficult to tell at this stage isn't it? I didn't hear him talking to anybody else, but then he didn't seem able to respond to me either, so perhaps.'

Anna picked up Sherlock's notes and her book, and headed into his room. The soft click of the door as she checked his blood pressure and oxygen saturations heralded Chloe's arrival.

'Sorry, delays on the Northern Line,' she murmured as she picked up the observation chart from the bedside table, and started to write the numbers down for Anna, drawing in his blood pressure with a neat hand.

'Thats fine, we've got enough staff on today to cover anyway,' Anna told her, then indicated with her had for Chloe to come and join her at the desk, where she filled her in on the events of the night.

'We're going to raise his observation level after last night,' she finished, 'Helen shouldn't have left him on his own after that really, its more by luck than judgement that he didn't injure himself. Plus if someone had been there when he woke up he probably wouldn't have got out of bed in the first place. I'd rather someone was with him, asleep or awake for the next few days.'

'Sounds sensible to me,' Chloe nodded. Then looking across at the sleeping figure in the bed. 'I think this is the worst part of an admission, you know. When all they can cope with is sedation and sleep. There's so little that we can do to make them feel better.'

Anna smiled at her. Chloe had been her trainee when she had first come to the clinic. Fully trained in both adult and psychiatric nursing, but with a lot to learn about the more complex methods of the clinic. She had been a good student, and was becoming an excellent psychiatric nurse; caring, empathic, but still lacking the edge of control that Anna had. Still, Anna was confident that she was the right person to be her 'wing-man' as it were with Sherlock, taking over from her on her days off, once she felt confident enough to leave Sherlock to someone else's care. 'We do make them feel better,' she said quietly. 'We provide reassurance when they're awake, and good nursing care when they're asleep; taking care of their bodies so that their minds can heal. Don't under-estimate the importance of that.'

'I prefer the talking part,' Chloe said, 'that's when you make the biggest impact.'

'You mean that's when you get to win the argument,' Anna said, with mock severity.

Chloe grinned, 'I can't deny that I like getting people round to my point of view, but its satisfying, isn't it? When you can help them to see things from a different perspective, prove to them that there's a way forward.'

'I think that even you mind find it a challenge outthinking this one,' Anna said. 'His IQ is off the scale and he's invented a career based on logic and reasoning.'

'Sounds like a challenge to me,' Chloe replied swiftly, then frowned. 'I never understand why people with high IQs don't realise whats happening and do something about it earlier, though. If they really are that logical, then logic must surely dictate that whats happening with them isn't normal, that the voices that they hear can't be real.'

'But it's the ultimate example of their own minds acting against them, isn't it?' Anna said. 'That's entirely the point. It seems logical because its a product of their own brain. That's why people with high IQs are more, not less likely, to suffer from mental illness, and to present later, because they conceal it and manage it themselves for a long time usually before they ask for help.'

'Well, I hope that you're feeling well-rested,' Chloe said quietly. 'Because I think that it's going to take a while to get Sherlock to a point where you feel happy to leave him.'

'I think twelve days of twelve hour shifts was my record,' Anna said, 'I'll be fine. The medication will kick in eventually. The challenge will be to get him to trust us enough to take it.'

'And if he doesn't?'

'Then we'll cross that bridge when we come to it. Besides, I've never met anyone who can resist my powers of persuasion for more than a few days.'

* * *

This chapter is for ChidorixCixBritannia - to prove that its not all going to be depressing, and that I do feel a little bit guilty at leaving it on such a down note yesterday!

Does anyone else get the distinct feeling that Anna doesn't entirely know what she's letting herself in for?


	10. Chapter 10

Kate headed over for the clinic after work. She had been distracted all day, and she had known it, but somehow this was still easier than the early days of Sherlock's illness, when she had spent her days at work constantly worrying about what was happening at home. Parents must feel like this when they first left their children at nursery, she had thought. Was something happening that she should know about? Was he okay? Did he need her? It wasn't that she didn't trust John, it was just the uncomfortable and probably entirely irrational feeling that she should be there; that there were situations that she could deal with better than anyone else, even though she knew that wasn't true. Even when Sherlock himself had encouraged her to go back to work; even though she knew that he would split his day between therapy with Ed Harris, and sleep, and she could help with neither of those.

This time though, she knew that he was safe. She knew that he was being better looked after at the clinic than he ever could be at home, and yet letting go of that control, and of the concern, was still difficult. It felt good to be doing something normal, though, and amid the children with viral infections and rashes and the sprained ankles and minor head injuries she somehow managed to forget Sherlock for at least short periods of time.

She had phoned the clinic before leaving for work that morning, and John had texted after his visit that morning to tell her that Sherlock had slept through his visit, but seemed calm, and well looked after. And that was what mattered, wasn't it? That should be all that mattered. She knew that he would get well, knew that eventually she would have him home and that life would resume some resemblance of normality, and yet knowing it and believing it seemed to be two entirely different prospects at this moment in time.

Walking through the doors of the clinic that evening, she took in what she had missed last time. The security at this place was astounding. There were two security guards discretely positioned next to the door. The receptionists had a screen in front of their desk, well-hidden in the ceiling, but ready to be dropped at the push of a button. The main part of the building was entirely sealed off from the entrance atrium. Cameras were everywhere, and she wondered exactly how quickly they could go into lock-down, or how often they needed to.

Announcing herself at the desk, she only had to wait for a few minutes before the second nurse from yesterday was there, to escort her to Sherlock's room. 'I'm Chloe,' she told Kate, as she let Kate through door after sealed door. 'I've been helping Anna to look after Sherlock.'

'You were there yesterday,' Kate said. 'I remember. How is he?'

'He's been asleep most of the day,' Chloe said, 'but the sedation should be wearing off soon, so hopefully he'll wake up while you're here. He needs a few more days of sedation yet, though I'd say. Give him time to recover from what happened on Saturday night, and to get used to being here.'

They had arrived at the door to Sherlock's room, and Chloe stood back to let her in to the antechamber first, and then checked the small screen by the second door, before opening that one also. The screen gave a black and white view of the room within, Kate realised, to prevent staff walking in and compromising a patient's dignity. If they could provide those for the NHS then it would prevent a lot of awkward moments all round.

'Kate's here,' she said to Anna, who was changing the empty bag of intravenous fluid hanging next to Sherlock's bed for a full one. Still not drinking then. Anna smiled at her. 'Come and sit with him, if you want,' she said.

Kate was struck again by how clean and neat the room looked, but then with two nurses looking after one patient it wasn't surprising that nothing was more than a centimetre out of place. Sherlock was lying on his side, back to the door, fast asleep, and Chloe brought across a chair and placed it next to the bed, so that Kate could sit and watch his sleeping face. John was right, he looked calm, and well looked after. The nurses were obviously doing their job well. There were no signs of his turbulent night, which Anna had reported back to her.

She reached across to kiss him on the cheek, and sleepily he opened his eyes and blinked slowly, as if trying to focus on her.

'Hullo,' she said, smiling at him.

He closed his eyes again for a few seconds, and then opened them again as if to check that she was still there. He looked dazed and unsure. He lifted a hand to rub his eyes, ignoring the length of plastic tubing that was now well-secured to it with tape.

'Are you real?' he asked bluntly.

'Of course, I'm real - here,' and she lifted a hand to stroke his cheek. His hand came up to cover hers, fingers curling round hers lightly, and she reached to kiss him again, on the forehead this time.

'Are the voices telling you that I'm not real?'

He nodded; eyes searching her face for reassurance, scanning it almost, as if weighing up the evidence for himself.

'Don't listen to them, Sherlock, listen to me. I'm real, and I'm here, and I love you, and nothing is going to change that.'

He remained silent, but his fingers tightened further around hers as he dropped his hand back to the bed, holding hers tight.

'Is it getting any easier?' she asked, finally.

'I don't know,' he said, sounding dazed, 'its difficult to think. Sleeping helps.'

'Then sleep,' Kate said quietly. 'Until it gets better.'

Anna was there, she realised, a silent presence on the other side of the bed. 'Do you want some more sedation?' she asked Sherlock, and Kate picked up on what she had, the slight tension on Sherlock's face as if he was listening to an internal dialogue. 'Switch off those voices?'

He nodded, rolling over onto his back to look at Anna.

'Can you take these pills for me first?' she asked, offering him a pot of tablets, but he shook his head.

'Not today,' he said, still sounding distracted. Kate's eyes met Anna's across the bed, wondering if she should say something, but Anna shook her head at her slightly, indicating that she should remain silent.

She had a tray of syringes in her hand already, and Sherlock's hold on Kate's hand loosened as the sedation took hold. 'I'm sorry,' he murmured, but he was asleep before she could ask him what he was apologising for.

Once she was sure that Sherlock was deeply asleep, Anna indicated with her head that Kate should join her at the nurses desk, where he was less likely to overhear them.

'He'll take the medication eventually,' Anna told her. 'It often takes a few days for patients to get to that point. Some of it is about trust, the rest, I think, is about feeling able to make a positive step towards recovery. He's not ready for that yet.'

'But he's here,' Kate said stupidly, 'why would he be here if he doesn't think that he can get well?'

'He's here because he doesn't want to be a burden,' Anna explained gently. 'Its easier to be looked after by strangers than to face the guilt of what he might be putting people he cares about through. The voices aren't helping that. That will be exactly what they're telling him, over and over. That he's just hurting you and John, that you would be better off without him in your lives. That was why he was on the roof, Kate. That was what he was trying to achieve.'

'So how do we get him over that, if he won't take medication?'

'He's getting haloperidol intravenously. That should switch off the voices eventually, and the sedation will help the rest. As he just told you, it's slowing him down, making it difficult for him to think, and if he can't think, then he can't access those negative thoughts which are part of the vicious circle of depression. Once the voices stop, he should be able to take medication, and then its just giving that a chance to kick in.'

'Can I sit with him for a while?' Kate asked.

'Of course, stay as long as you like.'

And so Kate sat, and watched him sleep, and wondered again at the complex range of emotions that the human mind was capable of. She felt fiercely protective of Sherlock in his vulnerability, and yet at the same time came that overwhelming relief at knowing that he was safe. A small part of her was angry with him for not having talked to her, for being on that roof and not even trying to involve her in that decision. Even though she knew logically that he hadn't been responsible for his actions at the time, that the voices had been firmly in control, still, a small part of her was furious with him.

Sherlock would have been fascinated by this conflict. His mind worked in black and white, shutting off emotions most of the time before they had time to evolve, before they had time to complicate; at least it did when he was well. It wasn't that he didn't feel things, as she had discovered early in their relationship, it was just that he discounted anything that wasn't rational, wasn't logical. When he was working all that existed for him was the case and the logical facts, nothing more. The assault of emotion was one of the things that he had found it hardest to deal with during his illness, he had told her. The irrational and illogical nature of it, the inability to keep those doors in his head shut, and the disintegration in his thinking that had resulted.

Better to shut it off then, for now, Kate thought, to shut it all off, until he could deal with it. He was here, at least. He was safe, he was well looked after. Time to try and shut off some doors in her own head too, to keep those nagging doubts shut away until she had time to process them. Sitting here with Sherlock, watching him sleep she felt oddly calm. Safe, for now, and in the right place to get well; finally after all those weeks of waiting and watching and trying to persuade him to accept more help.

Anna came over and rested a quiet hand on her shoulder. 'You okay?' she asked gently. She had been watching Kate's face, Kate realised, reading the conflict within.

Kate looked up at her and smiled gratefully, 'I'm fine,' she said, and it was half true. 'I'm trying to convince myself that the glass is half full and not half empty.'

'We'll get him well, Kate,' Anna told her, and there was a confidence in her tone that Kate carried with her as she kissed Sherlock goodbye and let Chloe escort her back to the main door and into a waiting taxi, despite her protests.

'Go home, get some food and some rest, let us take care of him, and try not to worry,' Chloe told her as she closed the door of the taxi behind her. And somehow when they reached the door of Baker Street and the taxi driver told her that the trip was on the clinic's account, she wasn't surprised. And with a degree of guilt she realised that she was glad that Sherlock was safe in the clinic, that much as she missed him, he was where he needed to be, and there was a reassurance in that.


	11. Chapter 11

To say that Sherlock Holmes was frustrated was an understatement. He wanted to sleep, he needed to sleep, and yet Anna was steadfastly refusing to give him any more sedation. She had allowed him intravenous haloperidol when he woke up that morning. There was lorazepam and a whole host of other tablets sitting in a paper cup on the table next to his bed, and that, it appeared, was the deal. All or nothing. He either took the medication prescribed to him, or he had to remain awake, staring at the wall opposite his bed or out of the window, and longing for the sleep that wouldn't come.

The voices were quieter today, that was something. Subdued, he presumed, by the haloperidol. His father's voice was absent entirely, and it was mainly the crowd effect of unknowns, with their constant stream of commentary on his actions, or lack of them, on his thoughts. 'Why is he just lying there? What does he think is going to happen? What does he hope to achieve by being here?' And then over and over again. 'Why didn't he jump? Because he's a coward, always has been, he should have jumped.'

It was easier though, to tune them out, these tormentors. Arguing didn't work, he remembered that from before. Better to let them simply wash over him, like a radio program that he didn't wish to listen to, but was unable to turn off. Ed Harris had taught him to try distraction. Television, books, radio, and talking when he could. Distraction worked, replacing the internal voices with external stimuli, but today he couldn't face it. Anna had offered to turn on the television for him, but the voices would be in there too, he knew, and they would only be louder for the attempt. Music too, even his beloved Beethoven, brought only painful memories. Only sleep enabled him to switch off the voices and the pain, and his sleep these days was deep and dreamless, punctuated only for the last few days, by brief periods of waking. Then would come the gentle voices of the nurses, the offer of the cup of water; declining food, declining everything other than the syringe and the blessed slide back into sleep.

At times it reminded him uncomfortably of the quietness and release brought by heroin in his student days, before the rehab, before the realisation that this was one thing that not even he could control. The need for it was the same, the promise of peace and silence and sleep. Self-medication, Ed Harris had called it; an attempt to control the uncontrollable. He didn't believe that Sherlock had an addictive personality, he believed that the addiction had somehow been a side-effect rather than the main event. With the recollection of that discussion came a flood of uncomfortable memories of his brief time in rehab. Of the hours of protesting, uselessly that he wasn't an addict, of refusing to cooperate with group therapy, of refusing to talk to the counsellors there; of the long, silent sessions, staring at the floor, with the staff sure that he would crack first. He never had. He never could. Too many memories, push them into a room and close the door. It was surprisingly easy to lock them away again, almost as rapidly as they had escaped.

It was in rehab that he had learnt to use sleep as an escape, reversing his sleep wake schedule, sleeping through the days, giving him the silent freedom of the television room when it was empty through the night, when he could finally have the solitude that he craved. But he had lost the knack of sleeping on command, it seemed. For sleep to come since his illness required medication, medication that Anna would not allow him to have, not until Ed Harris had come to see him, anyway. He had been here for four days, she told him. Four days of sleep, and silence, and allowing himself to be cared for. Ignoring his body, shutting down his mind, still wishing beyond everything that this could be permanent. That somehow these careful nurses might make a mistake, that an overdose of medication might find its way into his arm and not be noticed; that there was a simple solution to all of this, a way out without guilt for Kate and for John, and without the need for the courage that he had lacked up on the roof.

He considered this dispassionately, as if from a distance. The emotions that had felt so immediate in his brief periods of waking over the last few days, the despair that had flooded through him, leaving him capable only of curling in on himself, silent and shaking, were somehow almost entirely absent. A temporary respite, allowing him to analyse the situation. The residual sedation from the night and the haloperidol had, he presumed, between them finally numbed his brain to a point where it no longer hurt, provided that he could keep all the doors to the rooms in his head closed; an art that he had learned long ago. The blackness remained firmly shut in the back of his head, quiescent for now, but it would return, he knew. He had to use these few minutes of logical thought to persuade Anna to let him sleep, before it washed over him in a torrent, filling his nose and mouth with its blackness and filth; before it could drag him under again.

'Why won't you take the medication?' Anna asked quietly, from her seat beside the bed. 'Just the lorazepam and the pericyazine if you want. It would help,' but Sherlock shook his head resolutely.

'Why not?'

'Because there's no point,' he said, sitting up and resting his forehead on his knees, both hands wrapped round his curly head, as if he could somehow push away the thoughts inside. How fast they escaped the doors in his head, how quickly the walls came tumbling down, and the blackness returned.

'They would make you feel better,' she repeated for what felt like the twentieth time that morning. She was starting to regret her comments to Chloe of only a few days earlier. Sherlock Holmes was proving to be a tough nut to crack.

'Intravenous sedation would make me feel better,' he persisted, his voice muffled by his arms. Anna had never before come across a patient who could remain so logical with this depth of depression, even with the remnants of the sedation on board. The combination turned the majority patients into amenable zombies, who would dazedly do as they were asked to do, at least until the depression lifted, but not Sherlock. His depression remained profound, and yet this refusal of medication persisted, despite his acceptance of physical care. Food too, was persistently refused, as was any meaningful fluid intake. He would accept sips of water, but that was all. That was why she was so adamant that he had to talk to Ed Harris today, to see if he could find a way forward from here, because she was rapidly running out of ideas.

'Sherlock, I'm trying to help,' she said finally. And somehow, he knew that she was, and it was the simple honesty of that, that finally cracked through his defences, as the emotions continued to flood in.

'Then help me,' he said, removing his hands from round his head, and turning his face towards her on his knees without moving it. There was desperation in his voice, and an edge of despair and panic. It was a look that she recognised. Stripped back, vulnerable, defenceless, the look of a man who had reached the depths of the fall, and had no way of clawing himself back up again. A man who knew beyond anything else that he could not, and would not recover from his illness. And then she understood. The arguments, the refusal to take medication, the submission on his admission. She understood why Sherlock Holmes was here.

'You can beat this,' she said quietly, without any attempt to explain how she knew. 'You believe that there is nothing left, that the best that you can hope for is sleep, and silence, but it's not true. This is your illness talking to you, Sherlock, whether directly or indirectly, nothing more. You can get well, you just have to let us help you.'

He remained staring at her for several minutes, as if trying to process what she had just said, as if wanting to believe it, and then finally closed his eyes, rested his forehead on his knees again, arms wrapped round them, and remained, statue-like, trying desperately to hide the tears that threatened to come, until his body betrayed him, despite his best efforts, and the shaking of his shoulders gave him away.

Despair, most powerful of all human emotions, and one that got to Anna every time. She had been warned about Sherlock Holmes; about his hatred of physical contact, from anyone other than those he felt closest to; about the autistic traits, but Anna's instincts had never let her down before, and when her tentative touch on his shoulder wasn't shrugged off, she sat on the side of the bed, wrapped her arms around his thin shoulders, and rocked him gently, like a child. He started to cry in earnest then, great racking sobs, unaware and uncaring of what Anna or anyone else might think. And somehow the tears brought not humiliation, or even despair, but release. A strange sensation that after all these weeks and months of the attempt at control, of metering out what he was feeling into words and actions that wouldn't betray him, that would neither upset Kate, nor concern John, nor prompt Ed Harris to insist on an admission. That finally here in this clean, white, almost silent space, with this near stranger who seemed to understand what he in the past had been unable to voice to anyone, this raw and unfiltered emotion was somehow not only accepted, but entirely appropriate.

He had the strange sensation that there was no further left to fall, that he had reached the very bottom of the pit that he had been falling into for all of these weeks. He was tired, too tired to fight this deluge of emotion, too tired to do anything other than to let go, to exist in this moment in whatever form that took. And there was a comfort too in knowing that he was safe, and that it didn't matter, that none of this mattered; because this was the place that he had been fighting so hard to avoid, not just in this illness but ever since his escape from Elmhurst. Nearly twenty years of fighting the darkness alone, of concealing the depth of it even from those closest to him. Of working through it, taking tablets to enable himself to continue functioning, of hiding away when it became overwhelming.

There was a release in letting go of all of that, of knowing that it was out in the open now. That Kate knew, that John knew, that concealment was no longer an option. That his old life was now irrevocably lost to him, but whether that was a good thing or a bad one, he no longer knew or cared. Child-like he could only be here, and trust, and allow himself to be looked after. The nurses were kind, but more than that, they were empathic, like Kate. They knew, they understood, without the need for speech, or explanation. And Anna, who seemed to be by his side constantly in those last few dark days, reminded him uncannily of Sarah, the psychiatric nurse from his Elmhurst days, who he had come to depend on so entirely, and who had never once, betrayed his trust. It wasn't a physical resemblance as much as her way of voicing his deepest fears, without explanation; the feeling that she instinctively knew what he needed and gave it to him, without prompting.

He had no idea how long he sat there, wrapped in on himself, openly weeping, uncharacteristically grateful for Anna's presence. Finally the wave of emotion passed, and exhausted he sank back against the pillows that Anna had rearranged behind him, and closed his eyes.

Anna was speaking to him quietly, reassuringly. About trust, and the future, and how he could recover, but he let the words wash over him, unable to process them for now.

And when silence fell, he opened his eyes to check for her presence, and found her holding out a paper cup of medication. Without a word, he took the cup and swallowed the tablets, too tired to protest. Then he sank his head back against the pillows, closed his eyes and almost instantly fell asleep.


	12. Chapter 12

He was still sleeping when Ed Harris arrived for his appointment. 'No luck?' he asked Anna, observing Sherlock's sleeping figure.

'He hasn't had any more iv sedation since the early hours of the morning,' Anna told him. 'Just some halperidol to try to keep the voices under control. This is more exhaustion that anything else. He took some lorazepam and pericyazine with a lot of persuasion earlier, but he's still refusing everything else.'

'Has he said why?'

'No, its strange. He's hit rock bottom, I think. He's ready to accept help, he wants help, and yet the idea medication holds all kind of demons for him that he just can't put into words. There's a sense of futility there, certainly, but what else is underlying this is more difficult to work out.'

'I've brought his Elmhurst notes across with me,' Ed Harris told her. 'They hold some clues. He refused medication there - for weeks. That was part of the rationale behind the ECT. Then later on he started concealing tablets, disposing of them. He's never been what you'd call a compliant patient.'

'I can imagine,' Anna said with a small smile. 'He's certainly put me through my paces this morning.'

'Arguments?' Ed Harris asked.

'Yes, and then he just dissolved. Completely fell apart. Tears, despair, then he took some tablets and fell asleep before they could possibly have kicked in.'

Ed Harris nodded. 'He was like this before, at home; oscillating between frustration and despair. He had Kate there to pick up the pieces then. How did he deal with it without her?'

'Surprisingly well; too well in a way. He asked for help, let me be there for him, but from what you've told me I think that's a sign of how deep this depression goes. He seems to trust me, and that has come far quicker than I would have predicted, but again I think that he's fallen too far to care about consequence. The paranoia has gone because he no longer cares.'

'And yet at Elmhust the paranoia was a predominant feature, much more so than this time. I would interpret the trust differently. I think that he trusts Kate - and John Watson too. They've persuaded him to come here, and so he choses to believe that this place is safe.'

'Do you think that they can persuade him that the medication is safe too?'

'Very possibly, or perhaps I can. He trusts me too, I think, for the same reason. Let's see what I can do to convince him.'

...

When Sherlock woke, Ed Harris was sitting by his bed.

'How long have you been there?' he asked, still dazed by sleep.

'Not long, ten minutes perhaps. I didn't want to risk missing the chance to talk to you.'

'I fell asleep,' he said stupidly.

'Tough morning?' Ed Harris asked.

Sherlock rubbed a hand across his eyes, and left it there. 'They wouldn't give me any more sedation,' he said, 'and then - I don't know. Everything just - crumbled.'

'You accepted your illness,' Ed Harris said mildly. 'I would see that as a positive thing.'

But Sherlock shook his head, 'I'm too tired to do anything else,' he told him; Anna's theory was correct after all, then. 'I don't care what happens. I just want to sleep, and not to have to think.'

'How are the voices?'

Sherlock considered for a moment. 'Quieter,' he said, surprised.

'Because you've stopped fighting,' Ed Harris told him, watching his face for a reaction. 'Whatever your interpretation, you have finally found some level of peace with this, some degree of acceptance of what has happened to you.'

'Perhaps.'

'So if you have accepted it, why won't you take the medication that can treat it?'

Sherlock opened his mouth to say that there was no point, then frowned and closed it again, realising that this might not be the reason after all. If there was no point, then he should take it. The worst that it could do was nothing, it was more than that. There was fear there, but of what, he couldn't discern.

'What do you think will happen if you take it?' Ed Harris persisted as if reading his mind.

'I don't know.'

'And if you don't take it, what then?'

'I don't know that either'. He swallowed, acutely aware of his dry mouth and lips, and then if mind reading yet again, Anna was there on the other side of the bed, offering him water.

'You don't have to know,' she said quietly. 'You just have to trust us.'

'I do - trust you,' he said, 'I just - can't.'

He closed his eyes again, ignoring the whispering that was getting louder in the back of his head. The doors wouldn't stay shut, he could feel the despair creeping in again, becoming overwhelming.

'Tell me about the voices,' Ed Harris was saying. Mind-reading again, how did he do that?

'I can't shut them out,' Sherlock told him. 'I try to ignore them, it works for a while, but they always come back.'

'They come back when you try to fight this. Because they are a product of your own mind. Because they are expressing all the things that you are yourself trying to suppress. What do they say?'

Sherlock sighed. 'Irrational things.' He paused and then continued slowly, as if fighting his own inclinations to remain silent. 'That this is a conspiracy, that Moriarty is behind this even from beyond the grave, that the medication will poison me, or worse still turn me into an automaton, incapable of rational thought.'

'Is that what you're afraid of?'

'Perhaps.'

'How well is your brain functioning at the moment do you think?'

'Barely at all,' Sherlock closed his eyes in resignation. 'I never said that this was rational.'

'It doesn't have to be. Sherlock, you've been here before,' Ed Harris told him. 'I read your Elmhurst notes, what remains of them anyway. You refused medication then too, and the paranoia, the belief that you were being poisoned was there then also.'

'But there was a conspiracy at Elmhurst; I was right,' Sherlock said, opening his eyes and considering Ed Harris, as if all of this was just adding fuel to his paranoia.

'From your father?'

Sherlock frowned, and Anna could see pain cross his face at the memory. 'I don't - remember,' he said, so quietly that she could barely hear him from where she sat.

'Because of the ECT,' Ed Harris said; a statement, not a question. He sighed. 'Memory problems as profound as yours are an uncommon side-effect. The first course I can understand, and while they affected your childhood memories they shouldn't have affected your memories after the treatment cycle. That was due to the second cycle, and the rationale behind that and what happened in the intervening period are more difficult to extract from your notes than I would have hoped.'

'Ask Mycroft,' Sherlock said, closing his eyes, 'Or ask John to, Mycroft is more likely to tell him than you, I think. I can't think about Elmhurst now, I don't want to think about it. But if piecing together what happened there is necessary, then I don't mind John, or Kate, looking into it.'

'I think that what happened to you in Elmhurst is probably very relevant to what you are experiencing now,' Ed Harris said calmly. 'But you still need to take medication, Sherlock. Whatever we discover about your past doesn't alter that.'

'And if I don't?'

'Then you are likely to stay as you are, depressed and paranoid for a period of at least three to six months, possibly permanently. That is the natural course of this illness. Without medication you would have to stay here, because it is the only way that we can guarantee your safety.'

'That doesn't sound like a bad option,' Sherlock said mildly, although his face told a different story.

'I haven't finished,' Ed Harris told him. 'Long term intravenous sedation would not be an option, although oral sedation would be. You would have to start eating and drinking, spending periods of time out of bed. In short we could keep you sedated to a point where you would be less aware of your surroundings, but the depression would still be there. If you continued to refused food and drink then ECT would be our only option, and that is absolutely the last thing that I would want to subject you to.'

Sherlock Holmes closed his eyes again, memories of similar conversations at Elmhurst flooded in, then sat up abruptly, head resting on his knees, curled up, rocking slightly.

Anna was beside the bed in a second, rubbing his back gently, looking at Ed Harris sharply, surprised at his shock tactics. 'Nobody wants that for you, Sherlock,' she said gently, 'we're just trying to explain that not taking medication for weeks at a time is not an option. You've been here five days already, your body needs food. You have to start eating, or your body will starve.'

But he remained as he was, curled up, ignoring all attempts by either Ed Harris or Anna to communicate with him. Eventually Anna, with a nod of assent from Ed, went and fetched the syringes of medication that were waiting in the prep room next door, and when Sherlock's hands finally relaxed from where they were clasped around his knees, laid him flat, and uncurled his unresisting body into a more comfortable position for sleep.

Then, somewhat reluctantly, she called Chloe to sit with Sherlock while she and Ed Harris retreated to his office to try to work out where they went from here.


	13. Chapter 13

'I've never seen you do that before,' Anna said, when they were finally sitting down, and Ed's secretary had disappeared to make them both tea.

'Do you think that it was a mistake to provoke him like that?'

Anna shook her head, 'I've worked with you too long to think that you would do something like that accidentally,' she said, 'although I have to say, the thought did cross my mind initially. Shock tactics aren't usually your modus operandi.'

'He's a rational man, even now. He needed to know. I would say that his voices needed to know, but that sounds as if I'm colluding with his delusions.'

'Its almost like a split personality thing, isn't it? Its extraordinary. Its as if all of the irrational thoughts, all of the suspicion, have been pushed onto the voices. So on the one hand you have this very vulnerable, almost childlike individual who just wants to be helped, but he's constantly doing battle with these...'

'Demons,' Ed Harris said quietly, 'thats how he terms them, and they've had control of his head intermittently for a very long time, much longer than this current episode of illness.'

'You make it sound as if schizophrenia could still be a diagnostic option.'

'Split brain, as they used to term it. Yes it does sound a little like that doesn't it? But no, I still think that the original diagnosis is correct. I think that it's something more complicated than that. What we are dealing with Anna, is memory, walled off, locked away inside of his head from childhood. This is a man who has spent most of his life trying not to remember, and then the ECT at Elmhurst took away his ability to remember, until he no longer knows what is real, and what isn't.'

'You mentioned abuse in his admission notes - physical abuse. From his father?'

'Yes, and James Harrison, his old psychiatrist, seemed to think that that had a lot to do with his original illness. Interestingly all record of that has been removed from his Elmhurst notes.'

'How is that possible? Medical notes are a legal document.'

'Neil Simmonds, the clinical director at Elmhurst at that time, took over Sherlock's care when James Harrison left. He faced a GMC hearing for his management of patients there, and Sherlock's case was one of those discussed. I would imagine that he removed certain key documents illegally in an attempt to preserve his career.'

'Did he succeed?'

'He got a year's supervised practice, and diverted into research. The Child and Adolescent Psychiatry community is a small one, and nobody was prepared to give him another clinical post after his dismissal from Elmhurst.'

'Was he really that bad?' Anna asked.

'I was on his original disciplinary hearing, Anna. His treatment of patients was - unconventional to say the least, bordering on sadistic at time. If Sherlock Holmes has a problem with trusting health care professionals, then Neil Simmonds has a lot to do with it.'

'And the medication issue?'

'Possibly. There are records of a stand off over Sherlock's discharge; left in the notes no doubt by Neil Simmonds as a record of Sherlock's unstable state at the time. To me they read as if he deliberately provoked Sherlock into an extreme reaction towards him, and then used that to force him to take medication that he didn't want. It was sledge-hammer tactics, psychiatry at its worse, using a section to strip a patient of all choice, all control. For a vulnerable teenager with a history of abuse, who had recently lost his mother, it's hard to think of a more destructive management strategy.'

'How was he not destroyed by this?' Anna asked slowly. 'By rights, Sherlock should have gone the way of so many other troubled teenagers. Drugs, alcohol, self-harm, the slow slide into self-destruction and the destruction of others. Yet look at what he's achieved, despite repeatedly refusing to engage with other health care professionals. How on earth did he manage that?'

'His brother, oddly enough, had a lot to do with it I think. He's seven years older; he effectively parented Sherlock after his discharge from Elmhurst, and while their relationship has never been an affectionate one and has often been difficult, he gave him what he needed. Stability, boundaries, someone to pick up the pieces. And when Sherlock did fall into the almost inevitable drug dependency, he had him whipped off to rehab and kept there until he had proved that he could stay clean. Mycroft has managed Sherlock's life since he was sixteen, and surprisingly, Sherlock has generally allowed him to.'

'And yet now, he stays away.'

'He's been phoning me daily for updates, but here's something interesting. He seems to have handed Sherlock's care over to John Watson and Kate. Another conundrum for you.'

'Sherlock seems to think that he knows what happened in Elmhurst.'

'And that John Watson would be the best person to get that information out of him. Exactly.'

'But will he be willing to give us that information? Or rather to give it John to pass on to us?'

'For the sake of his brother's sanity, I think so. Either way, he's the best chance that we have of unravelling whatever happened at Elmhust, and what happened at Elmhurst, I'm sure, is the key to getting through to Sherlock now.'


	14. Chapter 14

Kate was met at the front desk by Chloe, as she had been every day since Sherlock's admission. He had been asleep for her last few visits, but still there was something comforting about being here with him; knowing that he was being looked after, knowing that he was safe.

'How he is?' she asked Chloe, as they walked towards Sherlock's room, down clean white corridors. Kate was always amazed by how light and bright this place was. The wonders of private healthcare.

'He's had a tough day,' Chloe told her quietly. 'We've pulled back on the sedation, trying to get him to take it orally instead or getting it IV.'

'And he still won't?' Kate asked.

'Won't or can't, I think the latter. Anna's tried, Ed Harris has tried. Maybe you'll have more luck,' Chloe told her with a smile as they reached the door to his room.

Sherlock was lying with his back to the door, staring at a pot of medication on the table by the side of his bed, as if he could make them disappear by looking at them hard enough, or as if there were answers to be found if he could just find the right angle to consider them from. At the click of the door, he rolled over to watch Kate come into the room. He looked better, she thought. Less haunted, less tired, the dark shadows under his eyes almost gone. 'Hullo,' he said, and when she came across to the bed to kiss him on the cheek, he reached up and held her face against his for several minutes, not wanting to let her go.

'Tough day?' she asked conversationally, when he eventually let his hand drop down to the bed, and she pulled up the chair to sit as close to the bed as she could.

He met her worried gaze, and held it knowing that she would understand how he felt without the need for words. Very quietly, she came and sat on the bed, pulled him towards her and held him tight, one hand cradling his head against her shoulder. Wishing, not for the first time in this illness, that she could take all of the fear and misery out of his head; knowing that all she could hope to do was to be there for him.

Chloe had let herself out of the room with a quiet click and Anna, seated at the desk, was doing her best to make herself as invisible as possible.

'I wish that I could make this easier for you,' Kate said finally.

'You do, he told her, still not moving. 'Just by being here, you do.'

Eventually he lifted his head and she stroked his hair back from his forehead, keeping tight hold of his hand as he rested back against the bed.

'You've been here a whole five minutes,' he said quietly, 'and you haven't told me to take my medication yet.'

She smiled, 'Since when did telling you anything ever work?' she asked.

He shook his head, 'It's not that I don't want to. It's just -'

He lifted her hand and placed it on his face, closing his eyes at the feeling org her warm palm against his cheek. Fear, Kate realised. He's afraid, but why?

'You're afraid of losing yourself in this,' she said finally, and he nodded almost imperceptibly.

'But why?' she blurted out, too confused by this idea to approach the subject sensitively. 'Sherlock, you can't function like this. You're feeling horrible, why not take the tablets that will make this better?'

He shook his head again, 'I did take them, Kate, remember? For almost two years after I left Elmhurst. They slowed me down, stopped me thinking. They made me -'

'Ordinary,' Kate said softly. 'Of course. You think that your mind is all that you have. Everything else is transport. But it's not true, don't you see? I don't love you for your mind, you idiot, I love you for you.'

'Its not as simple as that, Kate,' he said sadly.

'Then make it that simple,' she said, picking up the pot of tablets, and looking at the contents. 'It's not forever, Sherlock, it's just for a while; until you're better, until you're functioning again.'

He shook his head and turned his face away into the pillow, eyes closed.

'I would rather have you sane and ordinary, than mad and brilliant,' she said quietly. 'That is probably very selfish of me, but it's the way that it is.'

He turned his head to look at her, and she handed him the pot of tablets. 'Trust me,' she said, as he took them from her.

He shook the pot of tablets, trying to identifying them from the colours and the marks on them, and then deciding that he just didn't care. Kate was right. It was simple, and the simple truth was that things couldn't get any worse than they were now. Without allowing himself time to think about it, he lifted the pot of tablets to his lips and upended the lot into his mouth, washing them down with the cup of water that Kate handed to him, with a cough and a grimace. Too many tablets. Next time he'd have to remember to take them one at a time.

'Thank you,' Kate said quietly, kissing him on the forehead. 'That flat's too big without you. I don't want you in here forever.'

'I don't deserve you, Kate,' he said sadly.

'True,' she told him, with a small smile, 'but you've got me anyway, so you might as well make the most of it.'

She sat there with him, holding his hand, talking quietly, until finally he fell asleep. And even then, she sat there, watching his sleeping face, until she felt Anna's gentle hand on her shoulder.

'Were there sleeping tablets in that lot by any chance?' Kate asked, without looking round at Anna.

'Of course. Better for him to sleep with those than with iv sedation tonight.'

'I should go home,' Kate said, suddenly exhausted.

'You did well,' Anna told her, 'I doubt that anyone else could have persuaded him to take them. Neither Ed Harris or I could, certainly. So what was it in the end? What was stopping him from taking them?'

'He was afraid that they'd make him stupid,' Kate said with a smile. 'That was only a part of it, I think, but it was a big part of it. He didn't want to become an automaton. He's talked about that before; about how the tablets he took as a teenager made him feel removed from everything, disconnected. That's why he stopped taking them before.'

'Times have changed, medication has changed,' Anna told her.

'Try telling him that,' Kate said quietly. 'But it's a start, isn't it? It's a start at least.'


	15. Chapter 15

Kate could see from the light in the front window of 221A that John was home, even before she let herself through the street door. She was still debating whether to bang on his door to update him, when the door to his flat opened, and he stuck his head out.

'Tea? Wine? Help me with an ethical dilema?' he asked as she shut the street door behind her.

'Tea first, wine later, I think,' Kate said as she followed him back into his flat, and sat down on the sofa with a grateful sigh.

'So how is he?' John asked from the kitchen.

'Miserable, but awake at least. Did you go and see him earlier?'

'Yes. He was asleep, but I had a very interesting conversation with Ed Harris,' John said, bringing two cups of tea over, and placing one in front of Kate.

'Go on.'

'He seems to think that finding out what happened to Sherlock as a teenager - when he was admitted before, might be the key to helping him through this episode,' John said.

'But he won't talk about it,' Kate said, 'I've tried.'

'He can't remember, Kate, that's a large part of the problem. Ed Harris says it's come up in therapy sessions. He can remember bits and pieces, but nothing concrete.'

'And the medical notes aren't helpful?'

'Turns out that they're incomplete. Someone has removed chunks of them, and even with whats left, its a case of trying to read between the lines. You know what they're like, Kate. They tell you the bare bones of what was going on, but I get the impression that there was an awful lot going on behind the scenes that nobody wanted documented. What has Sherlock said to you about it?'

'Very little. Only that it was only six months or so after his mother had died; his father had beaten him badly, he got very depressed, stopped eating and drinking and ended up in Elmhurst. He seems to think that his father wanted to lock him up and throw away the key. I get the impression that his father was paying off one of the psychiatrist to keep him there, then his father had a stroke and Mycroft got him out. That's about all that he'll say.'

'That's more than he's ever said to me about it - other than that day when we came back from Wales to prevent Mycroft from breaking you two up, he's never really talked to me about it at all.'

'So what's the answer? You could try and track down the medical and nursing staff from Elmhurst, I suppose, see what they remember. But it was nearly twenty years ago, John.'

John tried not to smile and failed. 'Do you really think that they will have forgotten him?' he asked.

'No I suppose not. So is that the plan?'

'Part of it, yes. Sherlock, apparently has also suggested that I talk to Mycroft. He was there after all, he would know what happened.'

'Ah. I see the problem.'

John sighed. 'It's a double problem isn't it? The first problem is that I'm not sure that I feel comfortable investigating Sherlock's past like that. It feels wrong somehow to be finding out things that he himself doesn't know.'

Kate shrugged. 'That's the easy part. Talk to him, John. Ask him what he thinks. He's still in there, he still has his own opinions. You just have to catch him at a time when he's able to tell you what they are, and if they're cutting back on his sedation then there should be ample opportunity over the next few days to see what he thinks.'

'Let's hope so, because I'm not doing this without his agreement.'

'Talking to Mycroft?'

'Precisely. That's the second problem.'

'You can only try though, can't you?' Kate said. 'And he has offered to help. He does want to help, I think. And why wouldn't he tell you what happened. Its not as if he's implicating himself after all.'

'But he might be implicating his father.'

'True, but he's dead, John, so what difference does it make?'

'Thats not what I'm worried about.'

'You've lost me.'

John sighed, and contemplated his hands, clasped on his knee now, not wanting to meet Kate's eye for the next part of what he had to say. 'What if the abuse that Sherlock went through from his father - what if it was worse than we think, worse than he remembers. What then? Thats a can of worms that I'm not sure that I want to open.'

'Maybe it has to be opened,' Kate said quietly. Then when she realised what John was hitting about. 'Oh - you mean - no, I don't think so John, I really don't. Not that. I think that there was physical abuse there, emotional too, by definition, but sexual abuse? No, it doesn't fit the pattern.'

'Have you ever asked him?'

'It's come up in conversation, and he says no. His father despised him, at least that's Sherlock's take on it. When he was drunk,his father used to talk about beating the devil out of him. It sounds very much as if it was anger that motivated him, not desire. Besides, survivors of sexual abuse tend to have - scars shall we say related to the abuse, that transmit to - God, this is difficult. You know what I'm saying...' Kate tailed off.

'I think so,' John frowned, equally uncomfortable at the thought of discussing Sherlock and Kate's sex life. 'You're saying that you think that you of all people would know. But he never had a relationship until you came along, Kate. That's not normal for a man in his thirties.'

'His issue was trust, not sex, though. You know that. He had casual partners, he just avoided the emotional component. It was an itch that he had to scratch, a biological function, he just didn't want to complicate it with emotional ties.'

John let out a breath that he hadn't realised that he was holding. 'So it's unlikely.'

'Very unlikely in my opinion, but even if you do turn up something unexpected, I still think that its would be better to know now. Get the whole lot out in the open, whatever it is.' Kate paused, 'John this whole illness has come round from Sherlock trying to push everything into a room and lock the door. Push it into that box of his if you prefer, that's an image that he's used time and time again with me. Now that the box is open, we have to see how deep it goes. He has to pull the whole lot out, while he's in the clinic, while he's safe, no matter how painful that may be, because otherwise I don't see how he can get well.'

'Ed Harris says much the same,' John said quietly.

They sat in silence for a while, before John asked, 'Do you want to be there? When I talk to Mycroft I mean?' but to his surprise, Kate shook her head.

'I think you'll get more out of him on your own; but more than that. I'm not sure that I could sit there and listen to him describe exactly what happened to Sherlock in that precise and unemotional way of his. I'd complicate things, by being there, even if I could put my own emotions aside.'

'Don't you want to know what happened? Aren't you curious?'

'I want to help, Sherlock,' Kate said firmly, 'but for myself, if I'm honest - no. I just want to clap my hands over my ears and sing loudly. Sherlock isn't the only one who prefers to avoid things that they find difficult. But I'll help you as much as I can, John - for Sherlock, not for myself.'

'So where do I start, do you think?' John asked.

'With the notes, maybe, the Elmhurst ones,' Kate said. 'I think that we should treat it as an investigation, and I'll help in any way that I can. As long as it doesn't involve talking to Mycroft about it.'

John nodded. 'I'll head over to the clinic in the morning. See what I can get out of the notes, maybe start trying to track down some of the staff from the clinic, but I'm not approaching any of them until I've got the go ahead from Sherlock. How does that sound?'

'Good,' Kate said, 'very good. We'll need some kind of release document from Sherlock too, won't we? To get people to tell us what happened. Neither of us would discuss a patient without one.'

'I'm still officially his GP, remember? So I could play the professional exchange of information card, but yes, I think that you're right. I'd rather do this as transparently as possible. We can get Ed Harris or Anna to countersign that he has the capacity to make that decision at the time, and then it should be watertight.' He stood up. 'Now how about I cook us both some dinner and we open that bottle of wine?'


	16. Chapter 16

Heading over to the clinic bright and early the next morning, John was unsurprised to find Sherlock still sleeping. Ed Harris had, however, arranged to have John installed in an office with a computer and a telephone, so that all investigations could be done from the clinic.

'Mycroft Holmes' suggestion, actually,' he told John. 'He's pointed out that any information that you uncover could be dangerous for Sherlock if it got into the wrong hands. He doesn't want anything to leave this building. This way whatever you uncover can eventually be filed with Sherlock's notes, and will be subject to the same security procedures.'

'Makes sense,' John said with a nod.

Mycroft Holmes' influence was evident even here, and within an hour John also found himself furnished with a security pass, and access to Ed Harris' secretary for any typing or admin support that he needed. He was just in the process of logging onto his computer with his new IT password, when there was a soft knock on the door and Anna came in, carrying a stack of notes.

'Coffee is on its way,' she told him with a grin. 'I couldn't carry both, but I think you'll need the coffee if you're going to try to make any sense out of this lot. They defeated me, anyway.'

'Too much missing?' John asked, as he stood up to take the notes from her, and flicked them open curiously.

'And too much not documented at all,' Anna told him. 'Looks to me as if the nursing staff were writing one thing and doing another, towards the second half of his admission at any rate. I'm sure that their motives were good. Sherlock tells me that I remind him of Sarah, his primary nurse from Elmhurst, and the one who apparently took a job looking after him for several months at home after his discharge. He certainly feels nothing but gratitude towards her, and he trusted her, which says a lot.'

'Can we track her down?' John asked, interested in this new information, but Anna shook her head.

'I tried via the NMC website yesterday,' she said. 'She's not listed. So either she's not nursing anymore, or she's got married and changed her name.'

'Or she's working abroad,' John said. 'If she'd emigrated then she wouldn't necessarily still be listed here. I'll see what I can find. Sherlock still asleep?'

'Yes, but he's stirring. Give me an hour or so though, will you? I want to try to get him into the shower and at least starting to eat today - that's the target. I suspect that it may take some persuasion.'

'As someone who's been through that phase with him before- I can only wish you the sincerest of luck with that,' John said with a grin. 'It's not easy to get him to do anything that he doesn't want to do at the best of times.'

'I can be very persuasive when I want to be,' Anna told him with a smile of her own.

'I'm sure that you can,' John said softly, holding her gaze just a second too long, then looking away with a wry smile. 'Sorry, sorry. That was inappropriate.'

Anna laughed slightly, 'Against the rules, anyway,' she said, as she let herself out of the room, but had there or had there not been a soft 'unfortunately' as the door clicked shut behind her?

John shook his head, deciding that now definitely wasn't the time to think about this, and settled down to work his way through the stack of notes.

...

Heading back to Sherlock's room, she found him awake, and staring out of the window.

'Not talking, at least not to me,' Chloe said to her quietly. 'I'll leave you to it, if thats okay. I'll be next door if you need anything, but I get the impression that you'll have more luck without me here.'

'How is it?' Anna asked, walking round to the far side of the bed, so that she was between Sherlock and the window, which he was still trying to stare out of.

'Odd,' he said, after a significant pause.

'Odd how?' she asked, 'Can you explain what you mean?'

'Everything feels tilted slightly,' he said. 'Tllted and numb.'

'Is the numb good or bad?' she asked.

'A little of both, I think,' he said, finally looking away from the window and focusing on her. 'That's the medication kicking in I presume.'

'Exactly. Speaking of which I've got your morning tablets here. Can you take them for me?'

'Do I have a choice?' he asked, a sharper edge to his tone. Defensive, verging on angry, Anna identified. Today could be even more interesting than she had anticipated.

'There's always a choice,' she said quietly, then when he refocused his stare on the window again, 'Sherlock, I am not your enemy. Let me try to help.'

He shook his head slightly. 'Is it always this difficult?' he asked finally.

'For some people yes, but everyone is different.'

'I don't want to take the medication,' he said.

'You took it for Kate, last night,' she said calmly.

'And now I feel horrible,' he said. Again that edge of irritation, of anger.

'Headache?' Anna asked.

'Among other things, yes.'

'There are paracetamol in the medication pot for that. Its a common side-effect.'

'What happens if I don't take them?' he asked, sitting up slowly, taking the pot from her, and shaking it to examine the tablets.

'Then you don't get better,' she told him bluntly. 'And eventually we'll have to resort to an NG tube and give you food and medication that way. Nobody wants that for you, Sherlock.'

'So what would you suggest?' he asked, still staring at the tablets.

'Stop fighting this,' she told him. 'Try to switch off that brain of yours and just try to let us tell you what is best for you for a while.'

'And that would be?'

'For today - take your medication, try a shower if you feel up to it, have some breakfast. Small steps, but important ones.'

He frowned and shook the pot again. 'Do you want to know what they are?' she asked.

'No,' he said firmly, picking up a tablet out of the pot and swallowing it with the proffered glass of water, then another, then another, until the pot was empty.

He was unsurprised to see a pen torch in Anna's hand, and opened his mouth without being asked to show her that he'd swallowed them. He remembered that from before.

'Now show me your hands,' she told him, which he did without argument.

'And now keep your hands there, while I get the lithium out from where you've hidden it,' she said calmly.

He closed his eyes in resignation, but did as she asked; sitting forward to enable her to lift his pillows, pull out the tablet he had placed inside the pillow-case, and sweep the bed for any other hidden tablets.

'Not keen on lithium?' she asked.

He shook his head.

'Did your recognise the tablet from before?'

'Partly, yes, but the metallic taste in my mouth when I woke up was a big clue.'

'Have you hidden any of the others?'

He shook his head again, slowly.

'So why hide the lithium?'

'I just told you, because I didn't want to take it.'

'So why not just tell me that?'

He frowned. 'I don't know,' he said confused. 'It just seemed simpler to do it that way.'

'To see if you could?'

'Partly I think, yes.'

'To stay in control,' Anna said calmly.

'Is that what you think?'

'That's what I know,' she said, with a small smile. 'Its classic psychology, Sherlock. I tell you that you need to trust me, and to do as you're told. You make a good display of doing what you're told, while still proving to some small part of yourself that you're in charge. What would you have done with the tablet?'

'I have no idea,' he said wearily.

'Will you take it now?'

'Are you going to give me a choice?'

Anna sighed, and held up the tablet so that he could see it. 'I'm going to propose an experiment,' she said. 'That should appeal to the biochemist in you. Try taking your tablets, as prescribed, for a week. Start with the hypothesis that we might just know what we're talking about here, and be proposing the correct treatment. If at the end of a week you're not feeling any better, then we can sit down with Ed Harris and work out where we go from there. How does that sound?'

'Sensible,' Sherlock said warily, 'but not necessarily logical.'

'Go on,' Anna said intrigued, from her seat beside the bed.

'The medication will take more than a week to reach its full effect, so a week is too short a time trail.'

'Correct, it will take anywhere up to six weeks to reach the full effect, lithium can take longer. But I don't see you agreeing to take it for six weeks, somehow. You should be getting some effect after a week, however. Enough to convince you that taking medication is the way forward.'

'Perhaps.'

'And in a week, the side-effects will have settled down a little. At least you'll have an idea of how you're going to feel on it.'

'Or I'll be so drugged that I won't be able to protest anymore.'

'Which is where the trust comes in,' Anna said levelly, determined not to let him rattle her. She held out the tablet, and reluctantly he took it from her, put it in his mouth, swallowed it.

'Do you want to check?' he asked.

'No,' she told him with a smile. 'The look of resignation on your face says it all. Now how about that shower, or are you going to argue about that too?'


	17. Chapter 17

Knocking on the outer door as arranged an hour later, John was met by Chloe.

'Reinforcements, excellent,' she said. 'Even Anna's finding him a challenge this morning.'

'Sherlock being difficult? Surely not,' John murmured as she let him into the inner room.

'Morning,' he said briskly, as he walked in and dragged a chair to the side of the bed. 'I hear that you're giving Anna a hard time.'

Sherlock narrowed his eyes at him. He looked better, John thought; better than he had since he'd arrived here. Hair still damp from the shower, he was sitting up in bed, arms folded, obviously interrupted mid-argument.

'What on earth gives you that impression?' he asked mildly.

'Your body language, plus the fact that when I saw Anna a little over an hour ago, she looked cool, calm and collected. Now she looks - no disrespect Anna, but slightly frayed round the edges. What are you arguing about at the moment?'

'Well, we've argued our way through Sherlock taking his medication, argued him into and out of the shower, and now we're discussing breakfast,' Anna said, with a small smile at John, obviously glad for the back-up, as Chloe had implied.

'No, you're discussing breakfast,' Sherlock said, 'I'm telling you that I'm not hungry.'

'And as I've already said, your brain may be telling you that you're not hungry, but your body is starving. You're just choosing not to listen to it,' Anna said calmly.

'When did you last eat?' John asked. 'The day before your admission? And not much then from what I recall. Thats over a week, Sherlock. That breaks even Mycroft's six day rule.'

'Strange how you don't feel like eating when you're sedated and sleeping for twenty three hours a day,' Sherlock said, with an edge of sarcasm.

'Oh stop it, John said bluntly. 'Get him some breakfast Anna. Porridge or scrambled eggs are usually the easiest to get him to eat. I'll get it into him somehow even if I have to hold his nose to do it.'

'I'd like to see you try,' Sherlock muttered, but he didn't protest any further, as Anna went to organise the food.

When it arrived, however, he sat there and stared at the tray with eyes narrowed as if it contained some malevolent slime, rather than the rather appealing separate dishes of porridge, scrambled eggs and toast that wouldn't have looked out of place in the dining room at a five star hotel.

'Orange juice?' John asked him, handing him the plastic tumbler.

'Why is it always plastic?' Sherlock grumbled. 'I hate plastic glasses.'

'I'm presuming that's a rhetorical question,' John said, 'I suppose you're going to bemoan the lack of steak knives and cut throat razors in here too.'

'Proper razors are definitely lacking,' Sherlock said conversationally, taking the orange juice from John's hand and pointedly putting it back down on the table over his bed. 'Electric razors, John. When was the last time that you were asked to use one of those?'

'If you wanted to be allowed to use a proper razor, then you shouldn't have threatened to throw yourself off a tall building - again,' John retorted, and Anna found herself freezing slightly, waiting to see if this would precipitate an explosion from Sherlock. It was the sort of inadvertent comment from friends or relatives that she had learned early on in her training could provoke the most extreme of reactions, but Sherlock simply replied calmly, 'The first time was an optical illusion, a necessary one, as you were well aware.'

'Looked real to me at the time,' John told him.

'And it was meant to - to you, and to the other observers, but you knew, John. I'd left you enough clues for even you to be able to work it out.'

'And the second time?' John asked quietly.

That one hit home. Sherlock swallowed hard, closed his eyes and turned his head away.

'I'm not trying to make you feel guilty, Sherlock,' John told him quietly, 'I'm just pointing out that there's a reason that you're here. That there's a reason why the cups and the cutlery are plastic, and that you're not allowed a razor or even an electric toothbrush.'

'How do you know about that?' Sherlock asked, eyes open again, interested despite himself.'

'I've been reading the clinic safety protocols - and your notes,' John said. 'Spike on the end if you take the toothbrush head off, apparently. Some of the previous risk reports make eye-watering reading - literally.'

'Did you discover anything useful?' Sherlock asked, and Anna could see the almost physical wrench that it took to pull him out of the spiral that his mind was trying to take him down and back to the present. Clever John, she thought. He may have overstepped the mark in her opinion by bringing up the night on the roof, but he had managed to bring it up, make it clear that it wasn't an issue for him, and then twist the conversation onto something else entirely.

'That practices at Elmhurst were barbaric - that was from the GMC reports that Mycroft has provided though, and that a lot of people were trying to cover their tracks,' John said, then paused before asking, 'Sherlock, are you sure that you don't mind me looking into this?'

'Of course not. You know my methods, John. Short of doing it myself, which isn't an option, I can't think of anyone better suited to the task.'

'And talking to Mycroft, possible also to other people from your childhood - teachers, people who were employed at your house. The idea of me doing that doesn't bother you?'

'Why should it?' Sherlock asked, clearly puzzled.

'It just feels - intrusive somehow,' John said, then in a different tone, 'And are you actually going to eat any of that, or am I going to have to play aeroplanes with the spoon to get it into you?'

Sherlock sighed, picked up the spoon, and grudgingly began to eat the porridge.

John watched him eat - one spoonful, then a second, and Anna watched amused at the silent conversation between them. The implication was clear; John wasn't going to continue the conversation further until Sherlock ate.

'I wish that you'd stop treating me like a child,' Sherlock grumbled.

'I'll stop treating you like a child when you stop behaving like one,' John told him in his calm and unruffled way, and Anna had to restrain a smile. He was quite something, this John Watson. She suspected that he was an excellent doctor, and she could imagine what he had been like in the Royal Army Medical Corps; calm, decisive, authoritative when he had to be, supportive when he could be. And the way that he dealt with Sherlock was nothing short of miraculous. That Sherlock trusted him was obvious; that he understood Sherlock inside out and upside down was also obvious, and yet his relationship with John was entirely different to his relationship with Kate. Kate supported Sherlock. She gave him love, affection, understanding, whatever he needed. What she did not give him was boundaries; these it seemed were provided by John.

Anna remembered back to her conversation with Ed Harris about Mycroft parenting Sherlock, and wondered if in his own way, John Watson didn't do exactly the same thing.

'If you don't want the orange juice, how about something else to drink?' she asked quietly, when it became obvious that neither man was going to talk until at least some of the food had disappeared.

'Water's fine,' he muttered.

'Water doesn't have any calories in it,' she told him. 'Milk?'

The look he gave her said it all. 'Tea, if I must,' he said levelly.

'Fine,' she said calmly, 'John?'

'Why not,' John said, with a smile. Chloe, sitting at the desk, nodded silently, and left the room to put in the order.

'So you'll do it?' Sherlock was asking, 'You'll talk to Mycroft about Elmhurst.'

'If that's what you want,' John said, 'Do you - how about we talk to him together.'

Sherlock's response was to press the plastic spoon into his porridge bowl so hard that it snapped, leaving pieces of plastic all over the surface of the porridge. He continued staring at the surface of it until Anna took it away.

'Nobody is asking you to do anything that you don't want to do,' she said, but he remained silent. He changes so fast, she thought, interested. Rational one moment, out of control and unable to communicate the next.

It was John, yet again, who managed to get through to him. He allowed him a moment's silence, then said quietly, 'No Mycroft, then, or at least no conversation with him about Elmhurst. That's fine, I'll phone him later and see if he'll meet me to talk.'

Sherlock stayed silent for a long time, ignoring his tea, ignoring the rest of his breakfast. John seemed unperturbed by this, sitting next to him, sipping his tea, making occasional attempts at conversation, which Sherlock ignored, lost in his own thoughts.

After a good ten minutes, Anna realised that Sherlock's eyes were closed and he was asleep.

'Well that's one way to avoid a conversation that you're uncomfortable with,' John murmured quietly, then as he stood up and stretched. 'Sorry, Anna, I'm not sure that I helped with the food situation today.'

'You got some food into him, that's more than I've achieved so far,' Anna said, as they walked back towards the desk, and out of earshot, just in case. 'He's so - changeable. One moment logical and rational, the next moment lost in the despair and the voices. Was he like this before?'

'Yes,' John nodded, 'I suppose that I'm used to it. And even when he's well - the tuning out is something that he just does, maybe for the same reasons. I never thought of it like that.'

'Walls within walls,' Anna said quietly, 'Ed Harris mentioned that.'

'You thought that I overstepped the mark,' John remarked.

'Thats the second time in as many days that I've been surprised at how people handle Sherlock,' Anna said, with a small frown. 'First Ed Harris yesterday, and now you. He doesn't seem to be a man with whom the traditional rules of handling patients apply.'

John shook his head ruefully, 'You'll discover that few traditional rules apply to Sherlock,' he said. 'He can't bear being treated like a child, or when people don't say what they mean. He finds it intensely frustrating, even when he's like this; especially when he's like this, because he doesn't have the intellectual capacity at the moment to work out what it all means, and it sets his mind racing in all kind of directions that he can't cope with.'

'So I'm better to be blunt with him?'

'You're better to say what you think, yes. Be gentle with him by all means, he seems to respond to that, but call a spade a spade, and he'll thank you for it.'

'I'll bear that in mind,' Anna said thoughtfully.

'He does trust you, you know,' John said suddenly. 'There are very few people that he trusts, but once he's decided that you're on his side, then thats it. He doesn't change his mind easily.'

'He hid his lithium this morning,' Anna said quietly. 'That didn't feel like trust to me.'

'Did he take the rest of his tablets?' John asked.

'Yes - he just hid that one.'

'Then I'd see that as quite an achievement,' John told her. 'He even hid tablets from me and Kate, remember?'

'Control?' Anna asked.

'Pig-headedness,' John said with a smile. 'Even like this you can't stop him being stubborn, or wanting to get the upper hand,' then more quietly, 'It's tough though, seeing him like this. There are times when he's like the old Sherlock, and then, as you say, he's just lost in it again.'

'It's early days,' Anna said. 'He'll get there, it's just going to take time.'

'Just do me a favour,' John said. 'Don't say that to him. Patience isn't his strong point. He was frustrated enough at the thought of not being able to work for weeks, but now -'

Anna frowned slightly, 'He can't see a way forward at all now, John,' she said quietly, 'I thought that you realised that. That's why he doesn't want to do anything other than lie in that bed and sleep. Eating, drinking, washing, taking medication; none of that makes any sense to him. That's why he's arguing against it so hard.'

'Hopelessness,' John replied, 'the psychiatrist's biggest enemy.'

'Is that what you were trying to do?' Anna asked. 'Provoke a reaction?'

'In a way, yes, I suppose so. This interest in his past, it's the first time since he's been here that I've seen him that animated about anything. So I'm hoping to kill two birds with one stone, perhaps. Gather the information that helps Ed Harris to come to terms with his past, whicle at the same time getting Sherlock interested in the investigation. If anything can pull him out of this, a good juicy case can; even if it's his own.'

'You're a good friend to him, John,' Anna said quietly.

'He gave me a reason to keep going when I needed one,' John told her seriously. 'I'm just returning the favour.' And then without explaining himself further, he smiled at Anna, and returned to his files and his investigation.


	18. Chapter 18

Interviews with Mycroft Holmes were never John's favourite activity, but since Mycroft had shown remarkable self-restraint in staying away from Sherlock since his admission at the clinic, he could hardly refuse his request for an update on Sherlock's condition; especially when it fitted in so well with his own need for information from Mycroft.

And so after a full and exhausting day of working his way through files of information at the clinic, he found himself begrudgingly appreciating the luxury of Mycroft's limousine, which met him at the gates of the clinic to take him to his meeting with Mycroft at the Diogenes club.

The place always made John feel uncomfortable. He liked to think that his time as an officer in the army had removed the working class chip from his shoulder, but still, the club made him acutely aware that being a grammar school boy didn't give you any kind of old school tie that would be respected in this place.

'Have a seat, John,' Mycroft Holmes said from behind his newspaper, without looking up, as John walked into the library that seemed to function as Mycroft's private meeting room.

With a sigh, John came and sat in the Chesterfield armchair opposite Mycroft, and poured himself a cup of tea from the pot silently, while Mycroft finally folded up his newspaper and watched him.

'So how is he?' Mycroft asked.

'Since you've been phoning Ed Harris for daily updates I would think that you could tell me that.'

'I'm asking for your opinion.'

'As his doctor or as his friend?'

'Both.'

John sighed again, 'Better than he was, I suppose, that's the best that you can say, but he's got a long way to go.'

'And he's fighting it every step of the way?' Mycroft asked.

'The majority of the time, yes. How did you know?'

'Because he's always like this,' Mycroft said. Then at John's surprised look. 'I've been through this before, John, you forget. Not just while he was at Elmhurst; but time and time again when he was a student and at regular intervals since. In fact the five years since he's known you have been his best time yet, I think. He's dealt with it himself, at least.'

'And before that he'd come to you for help?' John spoke slowly, uncertainly; unable to contemplate Sherlock asking Mycroft for anything, even when he had been younger.

'He rarely asked,' Mycroft said, templing his hands in an unconscious imitation of his brother. 'But he found his own ways of letting me know that he needed help.'

'And did he accept it then?' John asked intrigued.

'Help? Not exactly. Not psychiatric help, certainly, not in the traditional sense of the word, but he would accept a place where he felt safe, where he could retreat inside his own head for a few days or weeks unable he was better able to cope with it.'

'When you say not in the traditional sense..' John asked slowly, intrigued at Mycroft's willingness to give him this information.

'I mean that he would not talk to any of the psychiatrists or psychologists I tried to bring in to talk to him. He would, however, occasionally talk to James Harrison, his old psychiatrist from Elmhurst on the telephone, and he would take medication in the short term as suggested by him. Once the episode was over, he would return to his old life and refuse to speak of it.'

'Sounds like Sherlock,' John said with a nod. 'Why did you never tell me, Mycroft? You warned me about his episodes. You told me to make sure that he was up by day three, and to make sure that he started eating by day six. Why did you never tell me what was really going on?'

'You're an intelligent man, John, and a doctor. I assumed that you would work it out.'

'Perhaps I didn't want to,' John said contemplatively.

'And so,' Mycroft said, 'Sherlock is safe, but remains unstable. He doesn't eat, he takes medication only intermittently, and I am told that if this continues a section may be the only way to treat him.'

'We're trying to avoid that,' John said quickly.

'Don't let your emotions cloud your judgement, John,' Mycroft retorted. 'You need to stay focused, we all do. Just because he has intervals when he sounds like Sherlock and acts like Sherlock doesn't mean that he is in control of his faculties.'

'He isn't,' John replied, 'not for the majority of the time anyway, but he's still in there, Mycroft. I'm just trying to help him to hold onto that.'

'And you think that knowing more about Elmhurst, and about his past will help with that?'

'Its a puzzle that has to be unravelled for him to get well, I think.'

'And if I asked you to let sleeping dogs lie, would you?'

'No,' John said quickly, 'I wouldn't. He needs this Mycroft, it's been eating away at him for the best part of twenty years. He needs to know the truth.'

'Even if it could destroy him?'

'Is that likely?'

'It is possible. It nearly destroyed him before.'

'So you won't tell me?'

'Not without checking with Sherlock first, no.'

'He doesn't want to see you, Mycroft, I'm sorry.'

'It's not a request, John. I need to see him for myself, to make sure that he knows what he's asking. After that if he agrees, I will tell you what I know, but only at the clinic, and all notes must remain there under lock and key.'

'I'll talk to Ed Harris,' John said, 'See what he says about you seeing Sherlock.'

'Do,' Mycroft said, picking up his newspaper again, to indicate that the interview was at an end, as a silent servant opened the door to escort John out.


	19. Chapter 19

Sherlock was surprisingly calm about the prospect of seeing Mycroft, when John proposed it the next day, and so only a few short hours later, Anna found herself opening the door to the immaculately dressed figure of Mycroft Holmes, accompanied by a distinctly worried looking John Watson.

Walking into the room, they found Sherlock lying in bed, staring out of the window, as he had done for hours since his admission. Churning over events, trying to link together threads, John knew. It was his equivalent of lying on the sofa in Baker Street, hands templed under his chin. And yet here, John also knew, Sherlock's mind was turning painfully slowly, and much of the time he was listening to his voices, he was sure, rather than trying to piece together the past and find a way forward.

Anna had spent hours trying to persuade him to verbalise his thoughts rather than remaining locked in his own head, but with little success so far. If anything, he seemed to be becoming quieter. Even John and Kate were struggling to maintain a conversation with him; although watching Kate and Sherlock together, Anna sometimes thought that they had little need for words. Whole conversations could pass between them in looks and silence, and Sherlock seemed to draw comfort from her presence, even if Kate did look noticeably drawn by the end of an hour or so in his company.

Mycroft Holmes remained silent as he stood by his brother's bed, looking down at the still figure, waiting no doubt for Sherlock to choose to acknowledge his presence. John sighed, wondering when he would finally be be able to stop having to arbitrate between the two brothers, and quietly said, 'Sherlock, Mycroft's here.'

'So he is,' Sherlock said, looking slightly dazed from the medication as he rolled over to look at his brother. Without being asked, Anna quietly moved across to elevate the head of the bed to a sitting position. If a power struggle was on the cards, then Sherlock might as well be at eye level with his brother.

Mycroft sat down in the chair beside the bed and contemplated his younger sibling. 'You look better,' he said, without any other attempt at pleasantries.

'Better than when?' Sherlock asked frowning, trying to remember when he had last seen Mycroft. His mind was moving so painfully slowly on the medication, it was hard to remember. There had been that chance meeting with Mycroft outside Baker Street, after an early trip with Kate to the park. Had he seen him since? He thought not. He had been avoiding Mycroft whenever possible, knowing that Mycroft would work out the true nature of his illness if he spent any time in his company.

'Better than that night on the roof,' Mycroft said quietly.

Sherlock shook his head, too tired to conceal his surprise. 'You were there?' he asked. 'I don't remember.'

Mycroft sighed. 'How do you think that Kate and John found you Sherlock, if not with my help.'

Sherlock closed his eyes for a second, painful memories flooding in. 'It's not something that we've discussed,' he said finally.

'The perhaps now is not the time to start,' Mycroft said, and there was a sadness in his voice that made Sherlock look at him sharply.

'I have been - concerned,' Mycroft said finally.

'Concerned? Why?' Sherlock asked. 'I would have thought that I was exactly where you wanted me to be. Safely locked up in here and finally complying with the medication that you have spent the last eighteen years trying to persuade me to take. I would imagine that you should feel reassured by my presence here.'

That anger again, Anna noted, she must ask John about that. It seemed to come so quickly, rising almost beyond his control, and yet he always seemed to manage to rein it in at the last moment.

'Enough, Sherlock,' Mycroft said firmly. 'I haven't come here for an argument. I am relieved to see you safe and looking better, certainly. You are obviously being well looked after here. Let us leave it at that, shall we?'

'So why have you come?' Sherlock asked finally, 'other than the obvious.'

'John tells me that you wish me to tell him about Elmhurst and the events that led up to your admission,' Mycroft said.

'Correct,' Sherlock said briefly. He's struggling with this, Anna realised, looking at the tension growing on his jaw, the hand twisting the sheet almost unconsciously. What was there between the Holmes brothers in the past that made Sherlock react like this? Mycroft Holmes had been nothing but reasonable in all of his conversations with Anna to date. A little abrasive certainly, a little searching in his questions, always trying to gain more information than he was entitled to, but never pushing too far when she explained the limits of what she could tell him. He had demonstrated concern towards Sherlock, but the need to control that John had warned her about had never been discernible. That Sherlock was safe, improving and receiving treatment seemed to be his only concern.

Mycroft had picked up on Sherlock's discomfort too. 'Always so defensive,' he murmured. 'What would you have me tell him?'

'All of it,' Sherlock snapped, 'everything that you can remember about Elmhurst, about my time there, and anything else that John deems important. Tell him about what happened at home to lead to my admission. Tell him about our father, and about what he did. Tell him what sort of man he was, and let him draw his own conclusions.'

His words came out in a rush, and when he had finished talking, he closed his eyes, and rubbed the side of his head.

'I can't discuss this with you, Mycroft,' he said wearily, 'Not now, maybe not ever. I need to know, but I can't hear it from you.'

Anna caught John's eye as she moved round to the side of the bed. John looked concerned, she registered, at Sherlock's distress, and she knew that they were both thinking the same thing. If he reacted like this to even the idea of hearing about the past, how would he react to the information itself?'

She placed a gentle hand on Sherlock's shoulder as he continued to rub his head as if he could rub out the memories. 'You okay?' she asked quietly. And then when he failed to respond. 'You don't have to do this now, Sherlock.'

'No, its fine,' he said, opening his eyes to stare at his hands, pleating the sheets now, steadfastly avoiding eye contact. 'I need to do this now.'

'Sherlock -' Mycroft began, not hesitantly, because Mycroft never hesitated, but with an awareness that what he was about to say was unlikely to be received well.

'It's not complicated, Mycroft,' Sherlock said. 'Just tell John what you know, without filters, without consideration of the implications of what you're saying. You owe me that much at least, surely.'

'I - owe you?' Mycroft asked, with enough of a raise of one eyebrow to let John know which way this was going.

'Okay, enough,' John said from where he was standing in the corner of the room, by Anna's desk, and all three of them turned to look at him. 'Mycroft, with all due respect, I'm not sure that you're helping. You said that you wanted to hear from Sherlock himself that he wanted you to talk to him, well there you go. He's asked you himself, he's asked you not to hold anything back. Correct, Sherlock?'

'Correct,' Sherlock murmured. If this goes on, he's going to crack, Anna thought, one way or the other. Anger or withdrawal, it could go either way. Both ways would result in sedation, and were likely to set him back by several days. Both she would like to avoid if possible.

But she had reckoned without John Watson. Calm, practical, unruffleable John Watson, who was obviously more than capable of dealing with the Holmes brothers.

'So why don't we just agree that you will tell me what I need to know, without evasion, without filters, to help Sherlock. I will then take the information and tell Sherlock what he needs to know. I will tell him the truth about what happened with his father and at Elmhurst.'

'Have you forgotten so much?' Mycroft asked, as if he was struggling to accept the extent of Sherlock's memory loss.

'Sherlock's memory of Elmhurst and the events leading up to his admission are patchy at best,' Anna said quietly, when Sherlock remained silent. 'Over the years his attempts to interpret what happened to him there, and to suppress the memories have led to memory becoming tangled with interpretation, until he can no longer tell what is real, and what is overlay. Worse still his medical notes from that time are incomplete, and therefore of little help.'

Mycroft nodded. 'I will help if I can,' he said finally, after several minutes of consideration. 'But have you considered, Sherlock, that this might make things worse, not better. That some memories are best left undisturbed.'

Sherlock shook his head, mutely, still focused on the sheet. Withdrawal, then, Anna thought. Too tired for anger, too defeated.

'Psychotherapy is a way of working through that,' Anna told Mycroft. 'Suppressing memories is rarely an adaptive coping strategy, long-term. Sherlock needs to know what happened to him, however painful. It is better for him to deal with it now when he has the support here, and Ed Harris to work it through with, than to risk memories coming back at a later stage, when he doesn't have that support.'

'Then I will tell John what I know,' Mycroft said finally. 'If that is what you wish, Sherlock.' Sherlock nodded shortly, once, but remained silent.

John let out a long breath of relief, but Mycroft made no signs of moving, despite Sherlock's ongoing silence and obvious exhaustion.

'I am sorry, Sherlock,' Mycroft said finally, 'that you feel unable to hear this directly from me. My recall of events after eighteen years will be less than perfect, but I will tell you what I know. What I will not do,' he said with a sharp look at John, ' is discuss anything other than hard facts. Agreed?'

'Of course,' John said when Sherlock failed to reply.

'Then I will be in touch,' Mycroft said, standing up and gathering up his coat. 'I'll see you back to the main entrance,' John said, as Anna moved to the door to let them out of the room, but not before Mycroft had shot one last glance at the huddled figure in the bed.

'I am truly sorry, Sherlock,' Mycroft said, pausing for a moment at the door. 'For my part in what happened. I should have done more to protect you.' John frowned slightly at this display of - emotion? Surely not. Emotion from Mycroft Holmes twice in one day, now there was a rare sight.

'Another time,' Anna said quietly, when Sherlock remained motionless. 'He can't process this now, Mycroft, he's too locked into himself. Once he has all the information, once he's had time to talk it through and process it, then will be the time to discuss your part in it. Let him have the hard data, and the rest will come later.'

And with a curt nod to Anna, and a swirl of navy overcoat, Mycroft Holmes was gone.


	20. Chapter 20

'He's gone,' Anna said quietly to Sherlock, pulling up a chair to the side of the bed. 'Can you talk about it?'

Sherlock shook his head, remaining huddled and immobile.

'Does your brother always have this effect on you?' Anna asked.

'When I'm like this, yes.'

'In Elmhurst?'

'Yes, I think so.'

Anna nodded, thoughtfully, waiting to see if he would volunteer any more information.

'Do you need to sleep?' she asked finally.

'Sleep, or punch Mycroft,' he said after a delay, finally opening his eyes to look at her. 'And I'm sure that you'd rather I took the more adaptive option.'

No, I'd rather that you talked to me about it, Anna thought, as she rang the bell for Chloe, to bring more medication, choosing to ignore the slight shake to Sherlock's hands as he swallowed the tablets and settled down to sleep.

...

'I hope you know what you're letting yourself in for, John,' Mycroft had said to him as they walked through the long corridors.

John chuckled, despite everything. 'After five years you choose to ask me that now?' he said. Then, 'You forget, Mycroft, that I've known Sherlock for a long time, that I almost certainly know him better than you do by now, and more to the point that I'm a doctor, and that I've been a soldier. I've come across just about every atrocity that human beings can inflict on each other. I'm unlikely to be shocked, and I'm not here to judge. I just want to help Sherlock to get well; and if this is what it takes, then I trust that you'll believe me when I tell you that I just want to discover the truth.'

'Then I will have Anthea contact you to arrange a time tomorrow.'

'You're worried about him,' John said matter of factly.

'I've been worried about my brother for a long time, John,' Mycroft said with no hint of his earlier emotion. 'Am I more concerned about him at the moment than usual? Yes and no. He is safer here than he has been for a long time, of that I am aware. His capability for self-destruction remains, however, and that concerns me.'

'He can't hurt himself here, Mycroft,' John said with a frown, you know that.'

'Not physically, no,' Mycroft said, fixing John with the icy blue stare so reminiscent of Sherlock's. 'But his mind is perhaps at more risk at present. His capacity to destroy that remains.'

'Something happened, didn't it? In Elmhurst?' John said suddenly. 'Something not dissimilar to this.'

'Tomorrow, John,' Mycroft said, as they reached the main reception area, and he walked out of the doors, and into the waiting car without a backward glance.

...

'Asleep?' John asked Anna, when he returned to Sherlock's room.

'Best thing for him at the moment,' Anna said quietly. 'He's certainly not able to talk about it, and sleep is better than him lying there and trying to make sense of it all on his own.'

'What do you think happened to him in that place?' John asked quietly.

Anna shook her head, 'I don't like to think. Something that destroyed his ability to trust certainly; betrayal, probably. Physical pain seems likely given his reactions when he first got here, and the nightmares. Poorly thought out restraint and the ECT might be enough to explain it. I just hope that's all.'

'And his father - what happened before?'

'Enough to damage him, certainly. The exact nature and extent of the abuse, who knows? But one thing that you need to remember, John. It's not the degree or the type of the abuse that is important, it's the impact that it has on the individual. One child can be more damaged by regular minor abuse with no support network, than another will be by abuse which on paper appears much more damaging, if it is dealt with well, and they have a supportive adult to depend on through it or after it.'

'So it's interpretation of it that matters.' John said thoughtfully.

'In a way. What I'm saying is that you need to try not to pre-empt whatever it is that Mycroft has to say. The damage done to Sherlock is the damage done. The origin of it is important, certainly, for his own ability to come to terms with it, but in a way the exact details are irrelevant to where we are now.'

'Its a shame that Mycroft won't let you be there too,' John said.

'I'm scheduled a day off tomorrow,' Anna said with a smile, 'so it's just as well.' She looked tired, John recognised. It had, after all been nearly two weeks since Sherlock's admission to the clinic, and Anna had been there every day. Long enough without a break.'

'Chloe being left in charge?' John asked.

'She's up to the task,' Anna said. 'She's tougher than she looks, and besides you learn early on in this job when its time to step away. If Sherlock struggles without me there, then we'll just keep him sedated, but I won't be doing him any favours if I try to keep working without a break. It's just one day, he'll cope.'

'I'll be here, anyway,' John said, 'talking to Mycroft, at least I hope I will. Tell Chloe to give me a shout if she needs back-up.'

Anna nodded in acknowledgment. 'Something else to consider, John,' she said slowly. 'I know what you think of Mycroft, but he's not a machine. He proved that today. I think that this is harder for him that he's letting on. There's guilt there, certainly. He feels that he let Sherlock down in some way, I'm sure. When all is said and done, Sherlock is still his little brother. If he didn't feel guilt at his inability to protect him then he wouldn't be human. Just consider that when you're talking to him, will you.'

John shook his head slightly. 'Mycroft is a hard, hard man, Anna. Emotion is rarely an issue for him.'

'All the more reason to be aware then,' Anna said with a smile.


	21. Chapter 21

The lights were bright, so bright that he couldn't open his eyes against them. He tried to put his hand in front of his eyes to shield them from the brightness that burnt even through his eyelids, as he was wheeled down a long corridor, but his wrists were somehow secured to the sides of the trolley. His feet too were immoveable. Frustrated he twisted against the restiction, but achieved only the bite of the restraints into his already tender skin. He tried to sit up, but a hand on his shoulder kept him lying flat on the trolley.

Then the trolley stopped, and there were voices, too many voices. Senses heightened, everything seemed so loud, and still too bright to open his eyes against, as the restraints were removed. He remained still for a moment, before struggling to push himself upright again, to take this opportunity for freedom; but there were hands, holding wrists and ankles, sliding him across to another, harder surface, securing more restraints around his protesting limbs, even as he screamed in frustration and writhed to avoid them. There were raised voices, telling him to stay still, and then amid it all, one voice softer than the rest, stroking his hair, telling him to lie still. A woman's voice, telling him not to be afraid, that she would stay with him. He wanted to ask her to help him, to explain that he shouldn't be there, but the words wouldn't come.

As he struggled to force his mouth to form the words, a mask came down over his face. He tried to push it away, forgetting that his hands were still secured. He twisted his head to try to avoid the mask, but it was held fast. He gagged and choked against the sweet-smelling gas that filled his nose and mouth. It felt as if he was suffocating, but everything was fading away. He twisted harder against the restraints in a last moment of desperation, and forcing his eyes open, found himself waking to an unfamiliar room in a tangle of sheets, sweating and shouting, t-shirt stuck to his back, bewildered and disorientated.

His breath was coming in fast gasps. Where was he? He couldn't remember. His heart was pounding, his head spinning. He was sitting up on the edge of a bed in a tangle of sheets and blankets. He raised a shaking hand to his head, now thankfully unrestrained, as a nurse came over from a desk in the corner of the room. He recognised her, he knew her. He trusted her - at least he thought that he did.

The nurse smiled at him, and laid a gentle hand on his shoulder. Surprisingly, he found that he didn't mind. 'Same dream?' she asked.

He looked up at her, blinking to focus. A dream, yes of course. That was all that it had been, but it had felt so real.

'Sherlock, you're safe, here,' she said gently, watching his face, picking up on his confusion. 'Do you remember where you are?'

He opened his mouth to say, 'Elmhurst', and then realised that it wasn't. He shook his head, rubbing his forehead as he did so, trying to clear the fog from his brain, but still, he couldn't think clearly.

'You're in the Northwood Clinic. This isn't Elmhurst. You're safe here.'

He nodded, and stared at the nurse for a long moment, trying to remember her name. 'Chloe,' he said finally. 'You're Chloe.'

She nodded. 'Thats right, good. Now how about coming and sitting in the chair so we can sort out that mess of a bed? Can you stand?'

He wanted to say that of course he could stand, but his legs were shaking and he was grateful for Chloe's supporting hand on his elbow as he sank down into the chair beside the bed.

'It must have been some dream,' Chloe said, squatting down in front of him. Another nurse had appeared, as if by magic, and was rapidly stripping the bed and restoring it to order.

He rubbed the back of his neck and his hand came away wet. He looked at it in surprise. 'How about we get you out of that damp t-shirt?' Chloe was asking. He nodded and pulled it over his head, shivering slightly, and pulling on the dry one that Chloe handed him. 'I was tied down,' he said, still feeling dazed. 'On a trolley, they wouldn't let me up.'

'That would explain the battle with the sheets,' Chloe said gently. 'Did that happen in Elmhurst do you know? Did they use restraints on you - tie you down? It sounds like it could be a memory, a flashback of sorts perhaps, provoked by your brother's visit yesterday.'

Mycroft had been here, of course. And he had asked him to tell John about Elmhurst and what had happened there. How could he have forgotten.

'Perhaps,' he said in answer to Chloe's question. 'In the dream, I was on a trolley, they were moving me somewhere. There was a room with another trolley in it. People were holding me down, there were more restraints, then a rubber mask, and then everything started to fade away.' His voice cracked slightly as he talked, still caught up in the horror of the dream.

'For ECT I presume,' Chloe said, and in her face was sadness and regret. 'It sounds like it might well be a memory. Have you dreamt of that before?'

'Not like that,' Sherlock said, still shaken by the dream. 'It was so real. I've dreamt of being held down before, of the table and the mask, but never like that.'

He was talking, Chloe realised, really talking, more than he had in days. She had been slightly apprehensive at the idea of managing Sherlock today without Anna's calm presence. She had seen a first hand how challenging he could be at times, how defensive and argumentative. But this was different. He seemed vulnerable today, stripped back perhaps to his sixteen year old self by the dream. Calmer too, now that the nightmare was leaving him, and more accepting of where he was and why.

'We can find out what the practices were at Elmhurst, if you want,' Chloe said, determined to keep him talking. If restraint was commonly used, what their protocol for ECT was. Ed Harris is coming to see you this morning. He might know too.'

Sherlock nodded. It was easier today, he realised. The voices were quieter, whispering intermittently on the peripheries, but easier to ignore, and now that the horror of the nightmare had faded, he felt calmer than he had for days. Even the darkness felt more distant, easier to ignore, to push away. It was easier to be here, to allow himself to be looked after than he could possibly have imagined. Easier than trying to work this out on his own to talk to Chloe and to quietly take his medication, make his way slightly shakily to the bathroom for a shower, eat breakfast even. Easier to just go with it than to keep fighting.

'You look better,' Ed Harris observed when he came to see him later that morning. 'Medication kicking in do you think?'

'Perhaps. I certainly feel more - detached,' Sherlock said, frowning slightly. 'Compliant. I suspect that's what Chloe would tell you.'

Chloe smiled at him, failing to rise to the bait. 'Calmer, I would say,' she said. 'And more able to accept help.'

'Tell me about the dream that you had,' Ed Harris was saying, and Sherlock did. And after his days of near silence, of feeling blocked in his ability to access anything, memories were slowly starting to come back. Snatches, disjointed bits and pieces of what had happened to him at Elmhurst with no coherent theme, other than fear and paranoia, and the sensation that all was not as it had seemed.

'How much do you want to know?' Ed Harris was asking.

Sherlock looked at him, not even attempting to hide the confusion on his face. 'I have to know,' he said, as if it was the most obvious thing in the world.

'Can you tell me why?'

'Because its my past,' Sherlock said. 'Because its important.'

'I'm not arguing with that, Sherlock. I think that you need to know too, but I want to know if you realise why it's so important to you.'

Sherlock considered for a long moment, eyes closed. 'Paranoia is only paranoia if it is untrue,' he said eventually 'I need to untangle it, and I need to know how much my father was behind what happened to me. Directly or indirectly. Because I need to know what extent he was prepared to go to in order to keep me there, and why.'

'We've talked little about your father recently.'

Sherlock shook his head. 'Too painful,' he said briefly.

'Are you ready to face it now.'

'No,' Sherlock said, fixing Ed Harris in his ice blue gaze. 'I don't think that I'll ever be ready, but I'm aware that it's unavoidable.

'Which is progress,' Ed Harris said nodding slightly. 'Where does that pain come from, do you think? Why is this so difficult for you?'

The answer that came from Sherlock's mouth was somehow not the one formulated by his brain. 'It's the genetics of the thing,' he said. 'That's what bothers me most. Not the memory of past pain, both physical and emotional, but the idea that the man who could do these things, this monster, is part of my biological construction. It's an unavoidable conclusion that whatever evil was within him must also, to some extent, resides in me.'

He blinked, unsure where this strange observation had come from. It was emotional, it was less than logical. It was a thought that had somehow come from his deeper consciousness straight out of his mouth without touching through any filter of logic and reason.

'Do you worry about history repeating itself?'

Sherlock opened his mouth to deny it, and then realised that to some extent it was true. Before Kate he could never have imagined having children, bringing more beings into this complicated and imperfect world, but now, although they had never discussed it, he found himself looking at small children trustingly holding their parents' hands, and wondering, just wondering, how it would feel to love that much, to be loved that much, to be so entirely responsible for another life. After Kate's experience with David, he had never broached the subject with her. It was still too early for them to consider it, but still. He watched parents' endless patience with their children and wondered if he would have that, or if anger would overtake him as it had his father.

'I'll take that as a yes,' Ed Harris said, watching his face. 'So what needs untangling here is not just the facts behind what happened to you, but also your father's motivators for what he did.'

'Anger, I would imagine,' Sherlock said quietly.

'Do you remember that?'

'Always,' Sherlock murmured. 'It always came from anger, and the anger came from hate.'

'Do you believe that your father hated you.'

'Of course.'

'It is unusual for a parent to hate their child.'

'And yet I somehow made it so easy for him.'

'Have you considered explanations for that?'

'I've done little else for the last few days.'

'And have you come to any conclusions?'

'There are two main options as I see it. Either he saw traits in me that he found intolerable, or more interestingly he doubted my paternity, and his hatred led from the belief that I was not his child.'

So coldly rational, Chloe noted, despite everything. Ed Harris was as unruffleable as always. 'Its an interesting theory,' he said calmly. 'Do you have any evidence for that?'

'Other than my mother's later infidelity, no. I'm sure that the thought must have occurred to my father, but it seems unlikely to be the explanation.'

'Because..'

'Because my father's estate was split between myself and Mycroft,' Sherlock said, his voice remaining level. Logic was always so much easier than talking about emotion. 'Had I not been his child, then given his level of disdain for me, I doubt that he would have left his will as it was. He would have had the means to obtain a DNA test had he felt it indicated, and I can think of no reason that he would have failed to act on the results.'

'Guilt?' Ed Harris suggested, impressed by how calmly Sherlock was taking this. 'Or the desire to avoid a scandal?'

'I think not.'

'Because?'

'Because that would imply that my father cared about the damage he did to me. He proved by placing me in Elmhurst that he did not. But more than that, much of his anger arose from the disgrace that he deemed that I was bringing to the family name. If I wasn't his child, then there would have been no disgrace. He would have welcomed the opportunity to proclaim me someone else's child, I think.'

'You've put some thought into this.'

'Of course.'

'Would you have found it easier if he was not genetically your father. Does some part of you want that to be true?'

Sherlock frowned again, and sighed, pleating the sheet in the way that he did when he found the topic of conversation uncomfortable. That was his tell, Chloe had noticed. That and rubbing the back of his neck. Every patient had them, subtle signs that they were trying to externalise their discomfort. 'It would make it easier than the truth,' he said quietly.

'Which is?'

'That my father hated me, and felt the need to punish me. That he somehow enjoyed my pain.'

'That is two different explanations for what happened. Do you believe that is true? That your father somehow took pleasure from inflicting pain on you?'

Sherlock shook his head. 'I don't know. I can't begin to guess at his motivations. I've spent hours trying to work it through, and what I can't get away from is the fact that he was a rational man. He rarely lost control - other than where I was concerned.

Ed Harris allowed him a moment, before asking quietly, 'You tell me that your perception was that your father hated you. Can you remember a time when that wasn't the case? When he showed you affection.'

Sherlock swallowed hard. 'No.'

'When you were a small child?'

'No. He found me an irritation I think; a little like an annoying terrier, or a lapdog. He found my mother's affection for me particularly irritating, although even that was very intermittent.'

'Was he jealous of her affection for you?'

'More of the attention that she gave me, I think.'

'Was your father violent towards your mother - or to Mycroft?'

'To Mycroft - not that I'm aware, or not to the same extent. I can remember him being caned on one occasion when I was small, and my mother comforting him afterwards. I can't even remember what he had done. But that was a punishment, not out of anger.'

'And with you? Was that from anger do you think?'

'Always,' Sherlock spoke quietly, reluctantly.

'Enough?' Ed Harris asked, picking up on his reaction.

'For now, yes,' Sherlock said, looking at him directly. 'I remember so little, it's frustrating. Fragments of memory, more visual than anything else.'

'It might help you to write them down. Could you try do you think? it might help John in his investigations, if nothing else.'

Sherlock shook his head. 'Too disjointed,' he said. 'I suspect it would only frustrate me further. Its more images than anything more concrete.'

'Could you draw them?'

Sherlock contemplated. 'Possibly, yes.'

'We have an art therapy department here,' Ed Harris was saying. 'I can send someone along with a sketchbook and pencils. It's time that we started looking at other therapy options anyway, now the medication is starting to kick in.'

Sherlock frowned. 'I'm too tired for an endless stream of therapy sessions,' he said quietly. Again, Chloe noticed, the fight in him had gone. He did just look exhausted.

'And I'm not proposing it,' Ed Harris told him. 'I agree. I think that what you need most is rest and a chance for the medication to reach its full effect. CBT would help I think at some point, but you are doing much of the work yourself in our sessions. Your depression has its source both in your childhood experiences, which we are trying to unravel, and in your bipolar disorder, which is a different entity, and can be treated with medication. Interestingly, you already employ CBT techniques in your own analysis of events. You are already able to come up with alternative explanations and to weigh up the evidence for and against.

'An art therapist could provide you with the tools and the skills to document your memories though, perhaps help you to unfurl them further though, and that, I think, is worth exploring if you feel able to do so.'

Sherlock shrugged.' Anything that gets these pictures out of my head is worth a try.'

'Then I'll arrange it. You have done well today, Sherlock, to be able to talk about this. I am aware of how difficult it is for you.'

'It's easier in here,' Sherlock said quietly, still pleating the sheet. 'It feels - safer, somehow. I know that no matter how bad things get, I can't hurt anyone. I can't-'

'Hurt yourself?' Ed Harris asked quietly.

'You knew,' Sherlock said, looking at him intently. 'You knew how bad it was before. What I was afraid of doing, why there were things that I couldn't discuss.'

'I suspected that the risk was higher than you were letting on, certainly. I suspected that there were ideas and plans that you were keeping a tight rein on.'

'And yet you never said anything.'

'It was a risk, a calculated risk - one which nearly cost you your life, but what I did know was that unless I could get you to voice those concerns directly, then you were not sectionable and would not have agreed to an admission. You denied direct plans, time and time again. Without that direct declaration of what you were considering, my hands were tied.'

'I couldn't talk about it,' Sherlock said quietly.

'And now?'

'Now, I have nothing left to lose, I think.'

'Which is a form of acceptance in itself,' Ed Harris said gently. 'So, I would suggest that you try to sleep for a while, and we will continue this tomorrow. In the meantime, try not to think about this too much on your own. Talk to Chloe about it by all means, but churning things over and over in your head at this point will do you little good.'

'I'd rather sleep,' Sherlock said, as the darkness started to creep back in. And so he took the sedation Chloe gave him and slept, untroubled for once by nightmares or memories.


	22. Chapter 22

John, meanwhile, was possibly having an even more difficult morning than Sherlock. Mycroft Holmes had turned up punctually at 9.30, accompanied by Anthea. John had arranged for them to use a large interview room, with wide windows looking out onto the gardens, well positioned to catch the September sunshine. John had not been able to face the idea of spending several hours in the windowless cell of an office that Mycroft had arranged for him to use while he was investigating Sherlock's past history; Sherlock's case, if he could call it that. Who could have predicted this six months ago? John Watson investigating Sherlock Holmes, or his past at least. Another one to file away for later.

Mycroft looked slightly tense, as he swept into the room, took up a chair by the window, with his legs crossed, and laid out the ground rules for John in rapid staccato speech. Anthea, meanwhile, quietly arranged herself and her laptop at a table in the corner, out of the direct eye-line of either man. John wondered how many and what kind of other meetings she had been witness to during her time in Mycroft's employ, although this surely had to be one of the strangest.

'I am prepared to talk to you for Sherlock's benefit, not mine,' Mycroft told John. 'Just so that we are clear, Anthea will transcribe our conversation while we talk. I would prefer you not to make notes, but if you feel the need to write down further questions, or bullet points to ease the interview process, then that is acceptable. Anthea will then provide you with an encrypted version of the transcript, once I have checked for inaccuracies, and this can be attached to Sherlock's notes, but must not leave the clinic. I need hardly tell you how damaging this information could be, should it be accessible to the wrong people.'

The press would have a field day, John thought, remembering the events before that first day on Bart's roof and Sherlock's prolonged disappearance and presumed death. And after that, the accounts by old school friends, the relentless digging through Sherlock's past. No, he wouldn't risk that.

'I agree,' he nodded. 'The notes stay here, although I take it that you're happy to share with Kate what I learn?'

'Of course, and the staff here, but nobody else.'

'You have my word,' John murmured.

'One more thing,' Mycroft was saying crisply, 'I am not here to talk about my own psychological state, or my own interpretation of events. In short, I will not take kindly to any attempts at amateur psychoanalysis. I trust that I make myself clear.'

'I wouldn't dream of it,' John murmured.

'Good, then I think that we understand each other. So shall we begin?'

John had had a pre-prepared speech ready, acknowledging that this might be difficult for Mycroft, and offering him an opportunity to call a pause if he needed to. With Anna's warning in mind, he was very aware that this could not be easy for Mycroft either. They were both a little uncomfortable in their new roles. Neither Holmes brother enjoyed relinquishing control, but somehow he sensed that an acknowledgement of this was the last thing that Mycroft would want.

'Where do you want to start?' he asked.

'You're the interviewer, John. But I would suggest with Sherlock's admission to Elmhurst, and we can work back from there.'

'Could we back it up just a little, do you think? Tell me about what Sherlock was like before Elmhurst, before he got ill. Was there any suggestion of mental illness? Depression, auditory hallucinations, anything?'

'Before my mother's death, you mean? No, I would say not.' Mycroft sighed. 'He was never an easy child, John, as I'm sure that you can imagine. He was argumentative, difficult, he refused to bow to social conventions from a young age. My parents chose to keep him away from social events whenever possible. Sherlock could always be relied upon to cause maximum disruption at the most inappropriate moment in time. Later Asperger's was suggested as a possible diagnosis, although he has always resisted any attempt at formal testing, but at that time he was just thought to be a difficult child.'

'How did your parents react to his behaviour?'

'How would you expect them to react? My mother with her normal combination of bewilderment and denial, my father with anger and punishment. That was the pattern of Sherlock's childhood.'

Now they were getting somewhere. 'Disproprortionate punishment?' John asked, anticipating the answer.

'Not in the beginning, no.' Mycroft said, steepling his hands in an unconscious imitation of his brother. 'You have to understand John that my father was an old-fashioned man, with old-fashioned values. He had himself had a very strict upbringing, and was no stranger to the concept of punishing children. He believed that lessons were best learnt with the cane, and with subsequent remorse and atonement. Sherlock would bow to none of these, however, and how often have you ever heard him express remorse at his actions or apologise? His punishments therefore rapidly became harsher than mine had ever been.'

'And later?' John asked.

'Later, Sherlock seemed to delight in provoking my father into anger. It became a game for him, almost, seeing how hard he could push him before he would crack. Don't misunderstand me, I am not trying to justify what happened. Sherlock was a child, my father should have exerted restraint, but equally Sherlock did little to avoid confrontation with him.'

'But why?' John frowned, 'Was it a bid for attention do you think? An attempt to prove that your father cared?'

'I have no idea,' Mycroft said, sounding distracted as he focused his gaze out of the window. 'And we are veering into the world of psychoanalysis, are we not? I told you that I would tell you the hard facts, John, not my interpretation of them.'

'Fine,' John said briskly. 'Were you subject to the same type and degree of punishment? Was it equitable, I mean.'

'I can certainly remembered being caned on occasion as a child, for minor misdemeanours, yes,' Mycroft said smoothly. 'Usually appropriately, I have to say. My father lost his temper with me on occasion, as with Sherlock, and on those occasions I would be taken into his study and punished. I would express regret and repentance, I would be sent to my room after punishment, generally with some restriction of privileges for a few days, then life would return to normal, and I would have learnt not to repeat my mistake.'

'And Sherlock failed to learn?'

'That was part of it, yes.'

'Was there a time at which you felt that it had got out of hand?' John asked. 'That it had crossed from punishment to something else?'

'Not for a long time,' Mycroft replied, ' You have to remember, John, that I was seven when Sherlock was born, and already away at preparatory school. He was cared for mainly by the nanny; a different nanny to the one that I had had before going away to school, so there was not even that bond there. At seven I was deemed old enough to take meals with my parents, and a small baby is of little interest to a seven year old boy. Many of the problems with Sherlock only began when he was sent to my old preparatory school when he himself turned seven; when he was expected to enter into the adult world, as I had. By that time that I was at public school, and my time at home was limited to those parts of the holiday when I was not away on school trips or visiting friends. I was aware of my father's anger towards Sherlock, certainly, but it was some years before I witnessed anything more concerning than that.'

'So you were unaware of the extent of it?'

'As I assume, was my mother,' Mycroft said. 'I first became aware of it when I returned home for the summer holidays at the end of my A-levels. I was eighteen, Sherlock must have been eleven. My mother was away in France, for a prolonged visit with relatives out there. Sherlock had begged to go with her, but had been refused on the basis of his frankly appalling school report, and was sulking. I came home to find Sherlock confined to his room even for meals, allowed out only to use the bathroom, with a black eye and in a foul temper. In the course of conversation with my father, he had apparently come to some interesting deductions about the state of my parents' relationship, and had directly accused my father of seeing another woman. That he knew enough of the facts of life to have come to that conclusion given his usual disinterest in the outside world is - intriguing. What is less surprising is that he did not have the good sense to keep his mouth shut about something that I had worked out years ago. Nonetheless, he deduced not only the presence of another woman in my father's life, but also her connection with my father, where and when they met, even what brand of perfume she wore, and which cigarettes she smoked. My father was - unimpressed to say the least.'

'Did Sherlock tell you what had happened?'

'Not at first, no. Initially he told me that my father had become angry, and that in trying to get away from him he had fallen and hit his face against the door knob. It took me two days to get him to tell me what had really happened, and for him to show me the extent of his injuries.'

'Did you confront your father about it?'

'Of course. My father was not an unreasonable man, John. He admitted that he had lost his temper with Sherlock and lashed out at him. He appeared - repentant. About hitting Sherlock that is, not about the affair obviously. That he chose not to discuss, and I chose not to reveal the extent of Sherlock's revelations to me. That was the nature of my relationship with my father. We both knew when silence was the best option.'

'He assured me that it would never happen again, but that nonetheless Sherlock had needed punishing, hence the confinement to his room, although I suspect that his desire to ensure that as few people as possibly saw his injuries had a role in this. I arranged to take Sherlock away for a few days to somewhere where his injuries would not be commented on, and by the time that we returned, all seemed back to normal. My mother returned a week later, Sherlock begged me not to tell her, and to my shame I complied, believing it to be an isolated incident.'

'Did your mother ever know?'

'I like to think not, that she knew about the more legitimate punishment only. She was aware of my father's outbursts of anger, certainly. On occasion these would be directed towards her, and that would often precipitate a trip to France. Once or twice I saw bruises - finger marks around her wrists or upper arms, grip marks where my father had grasped her too hard, raised voices from their bedroom. I chose to ignore them.'

Mycroft looked up at John, his face full of sadness and regret. 'I should have said something, John,' he said slowly. 'I ignored the signs because I was too much of a coward to do anything else.'

Then abruptly he stood up and said quietly to Anthea.

'Delete it.'

'Sir?'

'The transcript. Delete it, all of it.'

And with no further attempt at explanation, he walked out of the room, leaving John staring after him in confusion.

'Should I - go after him?'

'I wouldn't advise it,' Anthea said crisply.

They sat in silence for several minutes, John acutely aware of the ticking of the clock, before Anthea murmured something about coffee and slipped from the room.

* * *

Huge thanks to sevenpercent for betaing this for me, and for kicking me out of my writers block!

And thanks to everyone for reading and reviewing. More soon...


	23. Chapter 23

Slightly shaken by both the revelations of the morning and by Mycroft's reaction to it, John sat and filled his A4 pad with a combination of distracted doodles and pertinent questions, until Anthea returned. She placed a tray containing two cups of coffee on it on the table, and then in silence closed her laptop and placed it back in her case, snapping it shut.

'What are you doing?' John asked surprised.

'Obeying orders,' Anthea said, without a hint of emotion or reaction on her face. 'Goodbye, John,' and she was gone.

John heard a murmured conversation outside the room, and then Mycroft was walking back in. He silently handed John a cup of coffee from the tray, before picking up his own, and standing, one hand in his pocket, looking out of the window to drink it.

John waited patiently for him to speak, sensing that now would not be the time for a flippant comment about Anthea's disappearance.

'It won't work, John,' Mycroft said finally.

'I'm sorry?' John replied. 'You've lost me, Mycroft.'

'This,' Mycroft said, waving his hand at Anthea's vacant seat. 'Transcripts, my attempt to keep our conversation to hard facts, without telling you all that you need to know. It won't help Sherlock.'

'What will help?' John asked.

'I need some advice, John,' Mycroft said, turning abruptly, settling his cup on the table, and pulling an envelope out of his briefcase, he handed it after a second's hesitation to John. 'What,' he said very slowly, 'do you think that I should do about this?'

John cautiously pulled several sheets of lined A4 paper out of the envelope. The paper was slightly yellowed with age, and the pencil writing on it had faded, making it difficult to read. Nonetheless, John recognised a scrawled and younger version of Sherlock's now precise writing. The first line read, 'Once upon a time there was a boy called Sherlock.'

'What is this?' he asked.

'It's Sherlock's account of his life before Elmhurst,' Mycroft said quietly. 'Written after the first block of ECT, when his memory was disturbed, but beginning to come back to him. It was this story that provoked my father to ask for the second round of ECT, which obliterated his memory almost entirely.'

'Does Sherlock know about this?'

Mycroft shook his head, silently, his usually expressionless face full of sorrow. 'Would you have shown it to him, John? Would you show it to him now?'

'Is it accurate,' John asked, stunned at the revelation that Mycroft had had Sherlock's past in an envelope for all of these years, and yet had never shown it to him. 'What he's written in here, is it what happened? You said that his memory was affected by the ECT.'

'It is painfully accurate, yes.'

'Then he needs to see it, surely?'

'Read it first, John, and then tell me if you would have shown it to him.'

John settled down to read, intensely aware to start with of Mycroft's stiff-back figure, staring out of the window. As he read on, he found himself forgetting about Mycroft's presence almost entirely. The story that he read was raw and detailed. In places, Sherlock's pencil had ripped the page in his impatience to document the past, and in others his writing was almost illegible. It was a story obviously written in haste, without Sherlock's characteristic attention to detail. There were grammatical errors and spelling mistakes which John knew would make his friend shudder now. It was a story that read as if it had been written at one sitting, late into the night, and it made John want to weep to imagine the depth of pain experienced by the sixteen year old boy sitting writing this alone in a psychiatric ward; deprived of his mother, deprived of his memories, believing that his father hated him, and with no hope left for the future.

Finishing the final page, he handed the bundle of papers back to Mycroft, carefully avoiding his enquiring gaze. 'I need some air,' he said, as he let himself out of the room.

Mycroft came to find him in the gardens, ten minutes later and silently offered him a packet of cigarettes, as he sat down on the bench beside him.

'I don't smoke,' John said.

'Nor do I,' Mycroft replied, pulling one from the packet and lighting it. John, feeling like a student all over again, did the same. He hadn't smoked for over fifteen years, but the pleasure was still the same. There was something infinitely satisfying in doing something which you knew was destructive, or perhaps the pleasure was just in the nicotine hit. Either way, it helped.

'It's horrible, Mycroft,' he said finally. 'All of it is horrible. Sherlock's perception of his relationship with your father, his recollection of the violence, the way that he wasn't believed, that he tried to tell his teacher at school and your father - did he really manufacture all of those statements from his employees, all of the evidence to make it look as if Sherlock was lying?'

'I knew little about it,' Mycroft said quietly, 'but I wouldn't put it past him. Certainly several members of staff left my father's employment shortly afterwards, which would fit. What Sherlock hasn't included, interestingly, presumably because he doesn't remember, was the time that he ran away, and tried to get to my mother in France.'

'Did he succeed?'

'He got as far as the ferry, but he had no passport, and was picked up by passport control at the far side. I was delegated to go and fetch him. I've never seen my father so angry. If he had reached my mother he would have been shocked, however, she was in what could euphemistically be called a 'Health Clinic,' over there, a place which she had been to numerous times before.' He met John's gaze, to ensure that he understood what he was saying.

'A psychiatric hospital,' John said flatly, 'Of course.'

'A very exclusive private clinic, with every alternative therapy and spa treatment laid on, but yes, effectively.'

'Did she have manic-depression too?' John asked.

'I never saw her medical records, but I very much suspect so. It was well hidden. She took medication for her 'nerves', her behaviour was erratic at best, and some of her more flamboyant outbursts would be rapidly followed by trips to France, always accompanied by the same 'friend,' who I very much suspect was employed by my father to ensure that she reached her destination safely.'

'Sherlock's descriptions of her mood swings, alternating between giving him almost overwhelming amounts of affection and then screaming at him to get out of her room, throwing ornaments at him, taking to her bed for days at a time with headaches, it all sounds very - well characteristic.' John said.

'And familiar,' Mycroft said quietly.

'Did he know? Did he ever know that she was ill?'

Mycroft shook his head, 'I don't think so,' he said. 'It was never discussed, but bipolar disorder does often run in families, or so I'm told.'

'You?' John asked quietly, wondering if he was going to be told to mind his own business, but to his relief Mycroft shook his head, 'No, I seem to have escaped it,' he said. 'Psychological evaluation for the role which I fulfill is - extensive, to say the least, as I'm sure that you can imagine. Adaptive coping mechanisms, seemed to be the conclusion, which may surprise you.'

'I thought that we weren't talking about you,' John said.

'The rules have changed, John, or haven't you noticed?' Mycroft said, grinding out his cigarette beneath the heel of his perfectly polished, hand-crafted shoes.


	24. Chapter 24

Kate went to visit Sherlock that evening with some trepidation. She knew that the previous day had been tough for him, and the slow progress was beginning to get to her. 'I feel as if I'm on a rollercoaster,' she had admitted to Alice as they had lunch together at work that day. It seems that as soon as I think that he's finally getting better, then he goes back down again. It's just relentless.'

'Perhaps you need a break?' Alice suggested. 'A few days away maybe. Why don't you go and see your sister and the kids for the weekend? Get some perspective.'

Kate pulled a face. 'She'd have a field day, Alice, can you imagine? Kate's boyfriend is a psychiatric inpatient. Oh she'd pretend to be supportive, but inside she'd be rubbing her hands with glee at the thought that this one was possibly worse than David.'

'You don't mean that,' Alice said.

'No, I don't, but Beth would. She loves to see me fail, you know that.'

'She's just taken different life decisions to you, that's all.'

'Yes - smug ones,' Kate said.

'So don't tell her. Just go and stay, spent some time with Sophie and Caitlin, they'd love to see their Auntie Kate. Get a bit of distance.'

Kate shook her head, 'I couldn't leave Sherlock,' she said.

'Kate, he's being well looked after, you've said that. Besides he'd understand, why don't you talk to him about it?'

Kate's lips curled up into a smile, despite herself. 'He wouldn't understand at all, you know him well enough for that. But you're right in that he'd accept that he didn't understand and tell me to go anyway. Maybe next weekend, I'll see.'

...

But walking into Sherlock's room that evening she found him sitting up in bed, hunched over what looked like a sketchbook, pencil in hand. The television was on, switched to a news program that he wasn't watching. He looked up as she walked in and smiled at her.

'Hullo,' he said. He looked slightly dazed, she thought, as if he couldn't quite work out why she was there, but when she went to kiss him on the cheek, he turned his head the way that he always used to in public, so that her kiss landed on his lips, and he held her close for a moment, one hand buried in her hair as she sat on the bed next to him.

'Hello,' she said, as she finally pulled away. 'i thought that I must have come to the wrong room.'

He smiled at her again. 'No, the medication is kicking in, I think, that's all.'

'So - is it getting better?'

He ran a hand through his hair ruefully, the other hand holding tight to hers.'Better than it was, certainly. Less painful and the voices have almost gone. I feel a bit dopey, I can't concentrate on anything for long, I feel - drugged for lack of a better description, but that's better than the alternative.'

'I'm glad,' Kate said gently, reaching out to stroke his cheek. 'I've been worried about you.'

'I know,' that clear blue gaze caught hers and held it. 'Kate,' he hesitated slightly, 'I'm sorry, I'm just so, so sorry.'

'For what?' she asked.

'For that night on the roof, for what I put you through.' He spoke not so much with regret as with urgency, words tumbling over each other in his effort to get them out, before he had time to recall them.

'It wasn't your fault,' she told him, hand coming up to cup his cheek again. 'You were ill, you weren't in control.'

'Do you know what stopped me?' he asked, his eyes searching hers. 'You, your voice, telling me not to do it. That was all that I had to hang on to.'

She stared at him, trying to take in what he was saying. 'You could hear my voice?'

'Crazy, isn't it? Despite everything. Every other voice was telling me to do it, to get it over with, to jump, that you and John would be better off without me. And then there was your voice, so gentle, so calm, telling me that this wasn't the way, that you loved me, that I should hold on.'

'And that was enough?'

'It was enough to make me unsure. Enough to make me step away from the ledge and wait until I was sure. But you came first.'

She pulled him towards her and held him tight. 'I'm glad,' she murmured, 'I'm glad that I was enough.'

His arms tightened round her, and they stayed like that, tightly entwined for a long, long time. 'I should have told you that before,' he murmured into her shoulder.

'You're telling me now,' she said, brushing away a tear as he pulled away to look at her, then punched him lightly on the arm. 'You made me cry, you idiot, you know how much I hate crying.'

'I love you, Kate,' he said softly. 'I hope that you know that.'

'I do know that,' she said, with a little nod of her head. 'I thought that I'd lost you.'

'Never,' he said, as he pulled her close again, and suddenly Kate wasn't sure who was comforting who, but somehow it didn't matter. Sherlock was becoming Sherlock again, and he was here, and he was safe, and there was a chance, just a chance that one day life would get back to the wonderful, chaotic non-normality that their life at Baker Street had been before.


	25. Chapter 25

'You've been drawing,' Kate said, when Sherlock finally let her go.

'Ed Harris' idea,' he said with a nod. 'Since I can't write down my memories, he thought that this might help. Have a look if you want,' and he handed her the sketchbook.

She had known that he could draw; but before it had been confined to doodlings, the odd cartoon, mainly poking fun at John, and the occasional schematic sketch of a crime scene. These tended to look more like scientific diagrams than anything else, the clean lines of the objects in the room overlaid with arrows and scribbled comments. but these sketches were something else entirely. Detailed, intricate; as she turned the pages of the sketchbook she found page after page of the same two scenes. The first a hospital room, viewed from various angles. A bedside cabinet, a nurses desk in the corner, a window with a view of a massive tree, a beech from the shape of the leaves, and a heavy door, shut in all the sketches, with an observation hatch in it. Sherlock himself was conspicuously absent in all of these pictures, much to Kate's relief; but the second set of drawings were a birds eye view of a treatment room. His memory of this room was obviously hazy, with only the impression of doors and cupboards. A structure next to the bed looked to Kate like an anaesthetic machine, and she found herself unable to tear her eyes away from the huddled figure sketched in the briefest line in the bed, almost obscured by the lines of the sheet, just the head with its curly hair, recognisable.

'Thats what I remember,' Sherlock said quietly, and she realised that he had been watching her face as she looked at the sketches.

'They're good,' she said, trying to pull herself together.

'They're imperfect,' he said impatiently. 'There's an art therapist here, I met her earlier. She's offered to try to help me to make them clearer.' Then after a slight pause, and with an edge of his old curiosity to his voice, 'And they upset you, why?'

This was more like the old Sherlock too. Analytical, detached, trying to dissect the reason behind emotion, but always feeling slightly out of kilter with them.

'It's this one,' Kate said, showing him the sketch of the treatment room. 'Thinking of you like that, so alone, so - defeated. Its just hard, thats all.'

'Then I suggest you leave the investigation of this to John,' Sherlock said, sounding oddly detached again.

Kate shook her head, 'No, I want to help,' she said, and then watching the hard line of his jaw, said softly, 'You don't have to protect me, you know Sherlock, I'm a big girl, I'd rather know the truth, help you find out the truth.'

He frowned, and looked down, pleating the sheet between his fingers in a way that had become almost a tic since his admission. 'John was here earlier,' he said quietly. 'He talked to Mycroft.'

'And?'

'And he asked if I wanted to know what he had found out as he uncovered the facts, or if I wanted to wait until he had a cohesive story.'

'What did you say?' Kate asked, knowing the answer before she had finished the question.

'I told him that I couldn't cope with a slow drip-feed of information, and I preferred to wait until he had finished his investigation,' Sherlock said, still looking at the sheet, then looking up, he fixed Kate in his piercing blue gaze. 'Does that make me a coward, Kate?' he asked, with uncharacteristic uncertainty.

'No,' she said, with a slight shake of her head, 'It makes you realistic about what you can and can't cope with at the moment.

'I wish,' he frowned. 'I wish for all the world that I didn't have to know, that I could just wipe the whole thing out, but...'

'But you can't,' she finished for him. 'You know that, you've spent nearly twenty years trying to block it out, to forget. It doesn't work, Sherlock, you need to know.'

'Is the past always this painful?' he asked, bluntly.

'Not always, no, but some parts of the past are.' She paused, 'What are you afraid of, do you know? What's the worst thing that could come out of this.'

He frowned, 'My father, Kate. Strangely enough, I don't want to discover that he was a monster. I want there to be a reason, an excuse for what he did. I want to find some evidence of humanity in him. I need to, I think.'

'Few people are truly evil,' Kate said quietly. 'There's always a reason.'

'I hope so. Kate can you do something for me?'

'Of course.'

'John is going to talk to James Harrison, in Edinburgh. Face to face interviews always work best, I've found. Will you go with him, see what you can discover?'

Kate shook her head in confusion, 'If you want me to, then of course I'll go, but why? John is more than capable of interviewing him on his own.'

'Because you see beyond the surface in a way that John can't always do. If he's lying, if there's something he's holding back on, you'll know.'

'Why would he lie?' Kate asked in confusion.

'I don't know,' Sherlock told her, 'all I know is that more went on at Elmhurst than anyone is prepared to admit.'

'When is he planning to go, do you know?'

'Soon. The end of the week I suspect.'

Sherlock closed his eyes for a moment, frowning. 'You okay?' Kate asked, and Chloe automatically looked up from her seat at the desk, from where she had been trying not to eavesdrop on their conversation.

'I'm fine,' he said automatically, and then remembering that thiswas Kate, sighed and said, 'Its just hard to focus on anything, thats all. Thinking, even talking, requires effort to get past the medication. I'm tired, I'm fighting the impulse to sleep - or to just lie here and contemplate the ceiling tiles.'

Kate smiled, despite everything. 'Impatient,' she teased gently, 'always so impatient.'

'I'm trying, Kate,' he said sadly. 'I'm trying to behave, to be patient. I know logically, that I can't fix myself, not this time.'

'But that doesn't stop you wanting to try,' Kate finished for him.

'Precisely,' he said, then after a pause. 'Was it like this for you?'

She frowned for a moment, trying to work out what he was asking, then realisation dawning said, 'When I was admitted to the clinic as a teenager, you mean?'

He nodded, eyes watching her face.

'Not really,' she said, after considering for a while. 'I wouldn't admit that there was anything wrong with me for a long time. It was everyone else's problem and not mine. My parents', mainly. Nobody could see what was obvious to me - that I needed to be thinner, stronger, better; that forcing me to eat, to get fat was the wrong thing to do, that I needed to be in control, and that by taking that away from me they were ruining everything.'

'I didn't believe that I was ill, either,' he said slowly, 'in Elmhurst, I mean, I remember that much. I was convinced that it was a conspiracy, cooked up by my father to silence me.'

'To silence you about what?'

'I have no idea,' he said quietly, 'but we were talking about your experience, not mine. What made you change your mind about your illness?'

'Seeing others, I think. Other anorexics. I could see that they looked dreadful, and yet I still envied their thinness, it became like a competition. And then one day I caught sight of a reflection in the window. I thought it was a new admission; her hair was thin, her cheeks hollowed out, her clothes hanging off her. She looked thinner than any of us - she looked dreadful, and then I realised that it was me.' Kate stopped abruptly, surprised at how raw the memory still was. She never talked about this, she tried not to think about it, and yet if it would help Sherlock she was more than prepared to delve into her own subconscious for answers.

Sherlock was watching her reaction she realised - without sympathy, without emotion, waiting to see what she would say next.

'What did you do?' he asked.

'I went to my room, got into bed and cried until they had to sedate me. I refused to leave my bed for three days, but I did start to eat. I didn't want to be that girl anymore. I made them take the mirror out of my bathroom, I couldn't bear to look at myself. It was that sudden the realisation- like flicking a switch. Oh I suppose you could put it down to the psychotherapy and the CBT and the antidepressants that I was on, and many other things, and it wasn't as if I didn't still want to be thin. Eating was still a huge battle with myself every meal time, but something inside me had intrinsically changed. I wanted to change, that was the difference. I didn't want to be that skinny girl in the window any more, I wanted my life back.'

'Control,' Sherlock said quietly.

'Its always about control,' Kate said, 'just as it is for you. Perhaps that's why I understand you so well. I thought that I was in control, that I could control my body when I couldn't control anything else, but I finally realised that the illness was controlling me.'

'Control and then acceptance,' he said, eyes narrowing slightly as he contemplated what she was saying. 'Thats what Anna keeps telling me. Its about accepting your illness and the fact that you need help. But its painful, Kate,' he said with a frown. 'Ignoring emotion, denying it was much easier than trying to come to terms with it.'

'It get easier,' she told him frankly. 'It's getting easier, look how far you've come.'

'Perhaps,' he said vaguely, and then yawned. 'I need to sleep, I think. Will you stay for a while?'

'Until you're asleep, of course,' she said.

'And talk to John about whatever it is that Mycroft said thats unsettled him so much will you?' he said drowsily, eyes already closed. 'And tell him that smoking is a revolting habit.'

'John doesn't smoke,' Kate said, confused, but Sherlock was already asleep.


	26. Chapter 26

Apologies for the long wait. Hopefully the next few chapters will come a little more quickly!

Feedback, as ever is very much appreciated. Thank you for reading.

* * *

Kate was so deep in thought that she almost missed her stop on the tube; recognising the tiled walls of the Baker Street station seconds before the familiar beeping announced the imminent closing of the doors. Leaping up from her seat, she almost made it off the train in time, getting her shoulder jammed in the closing doors just as she was congratulating herself on her swift exit. This earned her several disapproving looks from her fellow passengers, and left her feeling considerably more shaken than the experience warranted.

Arriving at the top of the escalators, she searched through her pockets for her Oyster card for several minutes, before realising that she had stuck it into the book that she had been unable to concentrate on as a bookmark. Definitely rattled. Sherlock would have given her a sideways glance of poorly concealed amusement, and then fired off an accurate explanation of exactly what had happened and why. She missed him, she realised, not for the first time. It seemed like a long time since they had done something as normal as sit on the tube together. It had taken her months to convert him to the joys of traveling on the underground; to the delights of watching your fellow passengers from behind The Metro or a book, of trying to work out people's professions; the contents of the twelve bags at their feet; the relationship between a grey haired man and the teenage girl with him; the cause of the argument between the young couple opposite. It was a game that Kate had played on trains with her sister from an early age, and then with Alice through her teenage years; making up stories about the other people in their carriage. As she had grown into adulthood, Kate had graduated from making her stories as preposterous as possible, to attempting to discern the truth, using both observation and her gift of empathy to try to discern the truth beneath the everyday veneers that people presented to the world.

Sherlock, unsurprisingly, had turned the game into a competition, until they were sparring with each other to see who could work out the most about their fellow travellers, communicating in low murmurs, or occasionally via text if the subject of their scrutiny was close enough to overhear.

Sherlock always won on detail and deduction, of course, but Kate often picked up things that he didn't, beating him on the subtle perception of conflicting emotions and medical diagnoses. The medical details Sherlock quickly leant and assimilated, studying Kate's old membership exam books voraciously until he could beat her to the diagnosis; the empathy he found more challenging. 'But how do you know?' he would ask, staring at her intently. 'You said that she was angry with him; what made you think that?'

'I just - knew,' Kate would say with a shrug.

And Sherlock would shake his head and tell her that wasn't possible; that she couldn't just pick up emotion from being near someone, that it had to be a learnt ability to pick up on subtle gestures, facial expression, something. Anything else..

'Just isn't logical?' she asked, completing his sentence for him. 'It isn't, that's what I keep telling you.'

He pretended to be frustrated by his inability to pick up this skill of hers, and the few times that it lead her to win the game. But the pleasure of it, as always, was not in the winning but in the intellectual exchange; in the ability to spark off each other. They had learnt so much from each other in this process, Kate mused as she walked slowly down Baker Street, or rather they had learnt so much about each other, about how each other's minds worked. In those early days she had found herself wishing that she could climb inside Sherlock's head, to view the cogs of his cognition whirring and clicking, like some huge, beautifully constructed machine; immaculately clean and uncluttered, and always perfectly oiled.

His head wasn't like that at all, she had come to discover. The great machine had been kept running only by the act of shutting everything else away behind vast steel doors, which intermittently leaked their jumbled contents of memory and emotion into the machine room; blocking the cogs and forcing Sherlock to shut it down entirely with drugs and sleep. Those had been his danger nights, although it had taken her until this illness of his to fully understand that.

These days, she wished that she could climb into his head for a different reason. She wished beyond all that was rational that she could go into those rooms while he slept, and sort out the memories for him. She wanted to be able to organise it all, placing them on shelves and in drawers, like tidying a child's bedroom, until he was left with a neat record of his past to sort through and finally come to some sort of peace with. And yet in a strange way, perhaps that was exactly what he was asking her to do by investigating his past with John.

Looking up, she found herself only a few doors from 221B. She remembered something that Sherlock had said to her in the early days of his illness - about wanting to keep on walking, to walk out of his life. What Kate wanted at that moment in time was almost the diametric opposite. She wanted, entirely irrationally she was aware, to be able to walk back into her life; as if these last couple of months had been some strange dream, and she could wake up, safe in Baker Street, and walk into the living room to find Sherlock, entirely sane and rational, hunched over his microscope, or arguing with John about a case.

Sherlock was getting better, of that she had no doubt, and for perhaps the first time since that awful night on the roof, she could see a way forward; could see him getting to a point where he would return home, get back to work even. Strangely, that thought made her feel even more alone. When he had been really ill she had been grateful that he was in the clinic, grateful that he was being looked after and she no longer had to feel so horribly responsible; grateful that she could return to being his girlfriend and not his nurse. Now she just wanted him back home in 221B where he belonged, and she was all too aware that there was still a long road to travel before that could happen.

Lost in thought, she didn't even notice that John's flat door was open and that he was standing in the doorway, a glass of wine in either hand, and almost walked past him on her way to the stairs, until his soft, 'Kate?' made her jump.

'Sorry, I was miles away,' she said, as she took the proffered glass of wine and followed him into his flat.

'Dinner's in the oven,' he said as she sat down on one of the sofas and gratefully took a gulp from the glass of wine.

'Bad day?' he asked.

'No,' she said with a frown, 'good day, or rather, Sherlock seems a lot better. I've just been thinking too much, thats all.' She smiled at John, to show him that there was no need for his concerned, 'I'm here if you need to talk,' look. Company would do her more good than navel gazing this evening, of that she was convinced. Better to find a practical way to help Sherlock than to waste time on introspection.

'He seemed very calm when I popped in to see him earlier,' John said, and Kate silently blessed him for choosing to take her comments at face value. He knew her well enough to know when she needed to talk and when she wanted distraction. Good. Time to plan the way forward, then.

'How was Mycroft?' Kate asked, suddenly remembering that today had been the day of the great interview.

'Surprisingly forthcoming,' John told her; then at Kate's expression of surprise, 'Well no, you're right, to start with he was cagey, but then he did a bit of a U-turn. Dismissed Andrea, told me that he would tell me whatever was necessary to help Sherlock and that was exactly what he did.'

He gave Kate a brief summary of the information that he had gained from Mycroft. 'I'll give you a copy of my notes when I've finished typing them up,' he said, 'but there's something else, Kate, something that Mycroft showed me that I don't have a clue what to do with.' He picked up a document wallet from the kitchen table and handed it to her. 'I don't know how to begin to explain this,' he said. 'It's probably best if you see for yourself.'


	27. Chapter 27

Kate stared in disbelief at the thick wedge of tightly written sheets of A4 file paper that John had handed her.

'Sherlock wrote this?' she asked.

'While he was in Elmhurst, yes.'

'Why didn't he tell us?'

'Because he doesn't remember, Kate. He wrote it after his first lot of ECT and before the second.'

'Did you tell him?'

John shook his head. 'I asked him if he wanted to know what I had found out from Mycroft, and he said that he didn't want to know anything until I had the full story; but then he didn't know about this. I was going to ask him directly, but it just sat wrong somehow. This will be a big thing for him Kate, and I don't want to make the wrong decision. That's why I need you to read it, and to tell me what you think.'

Kate frowned, still staring at the stack of paper. 'It feels - I don't know, disloyal somehow to read this. Its a little like reading someone's diary without their consent.'

'I know, thats how I felt, too, but without reading it, you can't help me to decide whether to show it to him or not. And we can't ask his permission without telling him about it, and I'm just not sure that's the right thing to do. You know him better than anyone else in the world, Kate. That's why I think that this should be our decision, not Ed Harris' or Anna's; because you know how he's likely to react, and more to the point, you'll know if he needs to see it, however hard it may be for him.'

'No pressure, then,' Kate muttered, as she picked up the papers quickly, and as if fearing that she might change her mind, began to read.

John left her to it, moving quietly round the kitchen area, putting the finishing touches to dinner; timing it almost perfectly, so that dinner was on the table a few minutes before she laid down the final sheet with a sigh, rubbing her aching neck. Looking at the clock she was surprised to see that only forty minutes had passed.

'Come and eat,' John said. Then, 'Tough read, isn't it?'

'It's not the words,' Kate said, as she came to sit at the table. 'There's nothing in there that I didn't suspect, or that he hasn't alluded to. That's the thing, John; he may have forgotten the detail, but the overall story, he knows. I don't think that there's anything in there that will be a shock to him. What he'll find difficult, as I did, is what he hasn't put into words. The hurt, the pressure of the pen on the paper, the scrawled writing. It's the emotion of the thing, the pain of the telling, the reminder of how he was back then. And the emotions in this are so very, very raw. Hurt, confusion, betrayal, loss, it's all in there, even if he hasn't put it into so many words.'

She paused for a moment, trying to control her own emotions. 'It's odd though, don't you think? How Sherlock at sixteen was capable of all of these emotions; he didn't shy away from them, at least not in this.'

John shook his head. 'I don't think that it's strange at all. I think that he shut down afterwards, I think that was how he coped. I suspect that his mother was the only real attachment that he had, and that was intermittent, and very dependent on her illness.'

Kate looked at him confused and then closed her eyes for a moment as she realised what he was saying. 'She had bipolar too? Of course. It's there in his account if you read between the lines.'

'I think so. Mycroft tells me that she took medication, and he describes episodes when she wouldn't wash, wouldn't dress and would take to her bed for days at a time. Then there were the episodes of erratic behaviour, the extravagant shopping trips, hardly sleeping or eating, returning home in the early hours of the morning, often dropped off by all kinds of inappropriate men. Then she would disappear to France for several weeks, to reappear more subdued and life would return to normal.'

'What a thing to grow up with,' Kate murmured, 'and Sherlock adored his mother, I hadn't realised how much until I read this. Does he know do you think? About the bipolar?'

'Your guess is as good as mine. I suspect not, odd as it may sound. I don't think that it's something that he's ever let himself think about, and sometimes you're just too close to something to see the whole picture. Even Sherlock.'

'That's going to be an interesting conversation,' Kate said. 'Can we do some digging there? Get our facts straight before we tell him?'

'Of course,' John said, 'I was going to start off at their old house tomorrow. It's a conference centre now, run by an external company, well most of it, but Mycroft still has an apartment there. He tells me that there are boxes of old records in one of the attics; family photos, personal letters, that sort of thing.'

'Mycroft still lives there?' Kate asked. 'I got the impression that it had been sold, or - I don't know. Sherlock always talks about it in the past tense.

'From what Mycroft says he rarely goes there himself these days, but I think that they still own it, Kate; Sherlock and Mycroft between them. That's the impression that I got anyway. I would imagine that Sherlock finds it too painful to go back there. Mycroft told me that he offered him an apartment there at the time of the refit, but Sherlock refused. He's still got boxes and boxes of things in the attic apparently that he won't go near.'

'This is a rabbit hole and a half,' Kate murmured. 'Anything else that I should know?'

John shook his head. 'Mycroft knows surprisingly little about the abuse. I'll write up what he told me, but most of it is in that document. That's about as much as we know until I do some more digging.'

'And that's another reason that I don't think that we should show it to him,' Kate said. 'There's so much detail in there about the abuse, and I don't think that Sherlock is ready to deal with that yet.'

She picked up her fork, and started to eat, realising as she did so that she was starving. John was a surprisingly good cook, and he knew that his chicken madras was one of her favourites. 'This is good, thank you,' she said, realising that he was watching her.

'Its nice to see you eating for a change,' he said. 'So if we don't show him, do we tell him?'

'Yes, of course,' Kate said as if it was obvious. 'I couldn't keep something like this from him anyway. It's about trust John, it always is.' She paused for a moment, 'I'll talk to him about it if you like; explain why I don't think that he should see it yet, and why I don't want to tell him what's in it.'

John nodded. 'Would you? Thanks. I get the impression that he would take it better from you than from me. Don't you find it odd, though, that Mycroft kept that account for all those years and didn't tell Sherlock?'

Kate considered, and then shook her head, 'Not really. Mycroft tries to protect Sherlock. He always has. He would never do anything to disrupt the equilibrium, given a choice. I'm beginning to realise that of all of us, he has always been the most aware of how fragile Sherlock's sanity was; of how much of an effort it was for him to stay on an even keel, to keep functioning sometimes.' Kate paused, aware of John's puzzled expression. 'Think about it, John. Mycroft's reaction to my appearance in Sherlock's life, and to a lesser extent yours. That was what it was all about, wasn't it? Not wanting to change anything that could throw him off kilter, not wanting to risk tipping him over the edge. I couldn't see it at the time, but now I think that I understand why he did what he did.'

'What he put you through, Kate, was unforgiveable.' John said , remembering the extent to which Mycroft had gone to try to terminate Sherlock and Kate's relationship in the early days. 'I'm not sure that I would be able to understand someone going to the extremes that he did to split you two up.'

'Can't you? Honestly? If you hadn't known me before, if I'd appeared out of the blue and suddenly become such a huge part of Sherlock's life, would you have accepted it so easily?'

'I'm not sure,' John said with a frown. 'Perhaps not. But you're right about Mycroft's awareness of Sherlock's illness. He told me about the time after Sherlock came out of hospital as a teenager, and his time at Cambridge. Things that Sherlock has never really talked about. Mycroft took on a huge burden for someone in his early twenties at the beginning of it all. He had to grow up fast, after his father got ill. He had to go from being an older brother to a parent to Sherlock; not just organising his care and keeping him safe when he first got home, but afterwards, at Cambridge. He had to pick him up time and again when things got rocky; rescuing him from college; bringing him home, keeping him safe, never knowing if this was going to be the beginning of another depressive episode or just another low.'

'Mycroft talked to you about that?' Kate asked in wonder.

'He talked about everything, Kate. To start with he had Anthea with him taking notes, and he was careful, measured, reserved, all the things that I would expect Mycroft to be; but then something happened. He chucked Anthea out, disappeared for a while, and then when he came back he showed me Sherlock's papers and told me that he would do whatever it took to help me to get the bottom of Sherlock's past.'

'What else did he say?' Kate asked.

'All kinds of things; memories that obviously didn't come easily to him. As I said, it's probably easier for you to read it once I've written it up properly, but did you know that it was Mycroft who got Sherlock into rehab when he was at Cambridge?'

Kate shook her head. 'That's another thing that he never talks about.'

'And something that I'm not sure that we need to explore as part of our investigation, as Sherlock seems to remember it, but its relevant to his shared past with Mycroft. Very relevant. Sherlock went in voluntarily, but when he tried to leave a few days later, Mycroft effectively had him kept there against his will.'

'With a section?' Kate asked.

'Try again,' John said.

Kate groaned as she realised what he was saying. 'The vulnerable adult card,' she said finally. 'That's when he had him declared a vulnerable adult and incapable of making his own decisions. No wonder Sherlock resents him so much.'

'Precisely. But it's not as black and white as you might think. The way that Mycroft tells it, Sherlock was in a mess, Kate. He was in much deeper than he would allow himself to acknowledge. He was using every day. Mycroft believes, and I have to say that I agree with him, that if he hadn't intervened, Sherlock would have been lucky to survive six months out of the clinic, not to mention..' John hesitated.

'What?' Kate asked.

John looked uncomfortable. 'He'd started stealing, Kate. Mycroft gave him an allowance but it wasn't enough. Small objects had started disappearing from the house; nothing that Sherlock thought would be missed - ornaments, silver snuff boxes, that sort of things. Mycroft only noticed when he was organising an inventory for the insurance. There had been thefts reported at college too, and Sherlock admitted to taking the odd wallet on the street. You know how good he is a pickpocketing? Well there you go.'

'Oh,' Kate frowned. 'I didn't know.'

This unsettled her more than she liked to admit. The drugs she could understand. Sherlock had been trying to self-medicate and had got sucked into the spiral of increasing using and stronger and stronger drugs. That was dependence for you. It was a chemical drive, and had been beyond his control. But her own moral code was strict and unshakeable. There were things that you simply didn't do, and stealing was one of them. She had to remind herself that he had stolen to support his habit, that it had been driven by that particular illness, that need for drugs that drove everything else away, but still, it was hard to hear.'

'If it helps,' John was saying, watching her face. 'He only stole from those who he thought could afford it. You know what he's like, Kate; he can justify anything according to his own particular brand of morality, but he never deviates from that. He pick-pocketed rich businessmen, took the cash and left the wallet somewhere where it would be easily found and could be returned to the owner. Sometimes he pick-pocketed them in restaurants and returned the wallet before they realised that it was missing. Similarly he took cash and objects from people at college that he disliked and who he knew could easily replace them.'

'He would,' Kate said quietly.

'Kate, this isn't necessarily going to be pleasant,' John said. 'You have to be prepared for the fact that we may turn up facts about Sherlock that you don't like; that he may have done things in his past that you find difficult to deal with.'

'I know that,' Kate said, putting down her fork, and reaching for her glass of wine instead. 'it's fine; well logically it's fine anyway. I just wish that I was as good at Sherlock at switching off my emotions.'

'We know him, Kate,' John said, pushing away his own plate. 'Between us we know him inside out. We know who he is now, and all of this doesn't change that.'

And yet as he said goodnight to Kate listened, and by force of habit listened to the sound of the door to 221B opening and closing, proving that she was home safe, John wondered exactly what other surprises Sherlock's past had in store for them.


	28. Chapter 28

John stopped at the bottom of the steps and stared up at the imposing front door in amazement. He had known that Sherlock came from an affluent family but this - this was something else entirely.

The car sent by Mycroft had driven him here from Baker Street, leaving early to avoid the rush hour. Cushioned in its comfortable interior, drinking coffee from the thoughtfully provided flask and putting the finishing touches to his write-up of yesterday's interview with Mycroft, John had missed the turn off the motorway, looking out of the window only as they drove through the far side of the village. They turned through an impressive set of wrought iron gates, and John noticed the lodge house nestled to one side. Who lived there, he wondered; an old family retainer still perhaps? They drove up the sweeping gravel drive to stop in front of a beautiful stone house. It was older than John had imagined. From the few conversations that he had had with Sherlock about it, he had imagined an old Victorian pile, but this was older, much older.

Intrigued, John walked up the stone steps, noticing the discrete sign by the front door that said 'Reception', with an arrow pointing into the dark interior. The inside of the house had obviously undergone a considerable facelift since Sherlock's time. John had been expecting stags heads and stuffed badgers in glass cases. Instead he walked into a vast white painted space. There were dark beams to the sides and a cast iron chandelier hanging from from vaulted ceiling of the double height room but there was a feeling of space that he hadn't expected. An imposing dark oak staircase led up on the left hand side of the space, with a small sign indicating that the guest rooms could be found upstairs.

A dark suited receptionist was sitting at a desk to the right hand side, and looked up as John walked in.

'Good Morning,' she said with a well practised smile. 'Can I help?'

'I'm here to see - actually I'm not sure who I'm here to see,' John trailed off. 'Mycroft Holmes said that he'd send someone to meet me.'

'Of course. Have a seat, and I'll phone through for you.'

John settled himself into an armchair by the fire which looked freshly lit, and picked up one of the papers artfully fanned out on the coffee table, next to the copies of Country Living, Horse and Hounds and several others appropriately themed magazines.

He had barely got past the headlines when he became aware of footsteps, and looked up to see Mycroft Holmes walking towards him.

'John,' he said. 'Welcome to Cantley Hall. I trust that you had a pleasant journey?'

'It was - very comfortable, thank you,' John said, shaking Mycroft's extended hand and standing up. 'I didn't expect you to come yourself.'

'It seemed simpler,' Mycroft said. 'Besides, I needed to come up and discuss some details with the management here. I decided to kill two birds with one stone. Shall we?'

'I thought that we'd begin with the guided tour,' Mycroft said, as he led John down a long corridor branching to the left behind the fireplace. 'The conference guests aren't arriving until ten today, so it's a good opportunity to see the place without the risk of interruption.'

The house was quite simply huge. Mycroft led John through a bewildering array of formal rooms, and meeting rooms, obviously converted for the purpose of the conference centre. All were beautiful, with gothic stone windows, leaded glass and window seats in many of the rooms that looked as old as the house itself. The kitchens, Mycroft told him, had been extensively modernised and extended to serve the conference venue. John wondered vaguely how he had got the planning permission though for what must be a listed building, and then reminded himself that this was Mycroft Holmes and such things were rarely a challenge to him. He could pull many strings, and red tape seemed to mysteriously melt at his approach.

'Do you have photos of what it was like before?' John asked. 'From when you and Sherlock were growing up here I mean?'

'Of course,' Mycroft said, as he lead him upstairs to show him the guest rooms. Was it John's imagination or was Mycroft less reserved than normal? His guard was at least partly down. He seemed less hard today, as if their conversation of yesterday was still preying on his mind. 'I have the plans from the refurbishment in electronic form,' Mycroft was saying. They show the plan of the house before and after, with photographs of each room.'

'Where was Sherlock's room?' John asked.

'In the old nursery wing, down the corridor,' Mycroft said, as he opened a door with an old fashioned key. Swipe cards were obviously considered too modern for Cantley Hall. 'This was my parent's room, at least nominally. In reality, it was my mother's room; my father usually slept in the guest bedroom across the way.'

The room was huge, light and bright and impeccably furnished, with one end set up as a living area with a sofa, coffee table and huge wall - mounted television. If John had been allocated this room, he didn't think that he would have spent much time at the conference.

'What's through that door?' he asked.

'Bathroom,' Mycroft said. 'The bath is the original, the rest has been redone.'

An immense white, claw-footed bath stood in the middle of one of the biggest bathrooms that John had ever seen. It was one vast expanse of gleaming white marble. 'Exactly what kind of conferences are held here, Mycroft?' John found himself asking.

'Very exclusive, expensive ones,' Mycroft replied dryly. 'Actually it tends to be used more for corporate training. We offer a wide array of outside activities as well as the lecture and meeting rooms. Clay pigeon shooting, assault courses, team games, that sort of things.'

'It's - impressive,' John said, as Mycroft showed him back into the corridor. 'So was your room in the nursery wing too?'

'As a child,' Mycroft said. 'When I came back from my first term at public school I was offered the option of moving into this wing, which I did. My room was this one just on the right here. Sherlock was offered the same option, but he chose to remain where he was.'

'He didn't like change much even then?' John speculated.

'Less then than now,' Mycroft replied. 'He always found transitions difficult. Coming home from school usually precipitated some kind of - incident, and similarly he was guaranteed to get into some major form of trouble in the first few days of term. He was sent home from school on more than one occasion because of it.'

'What did he do?' John asked curiously.

'Blew up the school science lab on one occasion, in the early hours of the morning,' Mycroft replied dryly. 'He was trying out an experiment based on some theory or other, I believe. Turns out his theory was correct, but was a little more - explosive than he had anticipated.'

'He sneaked into the science lab out of hours to do an experiment?' John said with disbelief, then considering, 'actually I can see it. And the other time?'

'Something involving the headmaster's dental plate, I believe. I never quite got to the bottom of that one.'

'Why did he do it, do you think?' John said.

'Because he could,' Mycroft replied. 'Because he would usually get away with it, and because, as now, he felt the need to prove that he was cleverer than everyone else.'

'And you?' John asked.

'I am aware that I am more intelligent than the majority of people that I meet, certainly. Unlike my brother, I do not feel the need to prove it,' Mycroft replied with a hint of a smile.

They had walked though a set of glass double doors and down a long corridor to a slightly darker area of the house. 'This was Sherlock's room,' Mycroft said quietly, opening a white painted door and standing back to let John through.

The room was smaller than John had expected. It fitted little more than a double bed, and the obligatory desk and wardrobe. A door at the far end led, John presumed, into an ensuite that must have been created in recent times from an adjacent room. Long, wide windows filled most of the upper half of the wall opposite the door, and looked out onto the garden. The bare branches of a gnarled apple tree and a cherry tree were just outside the window.

'Did Sherlock climb out the window using the trees?' John asked.

'The drainpipe, usually,' Mycroft said calmly. 'I had to lock the windows on more than one occasion.'

'When he came home from hospital?' John asked.

'And during the drugs period, and any time that he shut down at college,' Mycroft said with an uncharacteristic lack of bluster. John shot him a look. There was a tension in his jaw that John hadn't noticed before, that said that he was finding the topic of conversation difficult, but John knew him well enough to realise that he wouldn't appreciate John remarking on it.

'What was it like when Sherlock was here?' John asked, curiously. 'There are photos in the archive,' Mycroft said. 'It was a lot more - cluttered. There was a desk there.' he pointed to the corner by the window, where the wardrobe now resided, which was always covered in chemistry equipment and his latest project. And books, the floor was always covered in stacks of books.'

'Sounds familiar,' John said with a grin. Then, 'I know it's a little off the subject, but didn't you mind, Mycroft? Turning this place into a conference centre I mean. It must have been hard to see the old rooms go.'

'Not really,' Mycroft replied. 'It was a purely practical decision. Much of the wider estate had to be sold off to pay death duties, and without the revenue that used to bring, this place could no longer sustain itself. I had two options - sell altogether, or convert it to something more practical and retain the building and at least some control. I chose the later.'

'And Sherlock?'

'Told me that he didn't care. Money doesn't concern him, John, it never has.' Mycroft checked his watch. 'I have a meeting in ten minutes. I'll show you where you can work. I've taken the liberty of having some boxes brought down from the attics for you to look through. I can show you the rest of the estate and the attics this afternoon.'


	29. Chapter 29

Apologies for they long hiatus - hopefully this chapter and the one to follow will make up for it...

* * *

John Watson stood up and stretched, massaging his aching neck with one hand as he did so. He had been sitting on the floor for the last two hours, sorting slowly and painfully through the content of the twelve or so cardboard boxes that Mycroft had had brought down from the attics. They contained, he had informed John, all of the family photos and papers that he had been able to find up there.

Mycroft had also provided John with an encryted laptop to work on, and a linked scanner and printer, to make copies of anything that he felt was relevant. John had divided the contents of the boxes into three categories; irrelevant, need scanning, and need to look at more closely. Walking across to the kitchen area of the flat he had been given to work in, he flicked on the kettle to make tea. Checking in the fridge he found it well stocked with the basics; not just milk, but also bread, cheese, butter, jam, orange juice. He could quite cheerfully live here for several days; perhaps that was Mycroft's intention. The bathroom was stocked with towels and toiletries from the conference centre, the bed in the bedroom had been made up. Was this flat part of the conference accommodation, he wondered? Wide french window at one end of the room let in the winter sunshine and looked directly out over wide lawns to a summerhouse beyond. There were woods at the far end of the garden. John vaguely remembered Sherlock babbling about the woods in the early stages of his illness; he had talked about monsters in the woods. John wondered if they were the same woods - he must remember to ask Mycroft later.

As he waited for the kettle to boil, John flicked idly through one of the photograph albums, showing pictures of Sherlock as a small child. Always with his mother, or a woman who he presumed was the nanny; never with his father, other than in the odd formal shot, in which the whole family looked slightly awkward. Flicking through it further was like fast forwarding through time. Sherlock grew from a grinning, curly haired little boy in shorts, to a scowling adolescent, Mycroft from an impeccably turned out adolescent, in tie and v-necked jumper, to an impeccably turned out twenty something,and then the pictures abruptly stopped. There were twenty or thirty photos tucked between the empty leaves towards the end of the album, obviously waiting to be stuck into the album when Sherlock's mother had died, and abandoned ever since.

Sherlock's mother was younger than John had imagined; a quick delve into the folder of copies of birth, death and marriage certificates revealed that she had been only twenty when she got married, twenty one when Mycroft was born, and twenty eight when Sherlock was born seven years later. The stack of certificates held another surprise; a death certificate for a child, a girl, stillborn two years after Mycroft's birth, no name recorded in either her birth or death certificate, recorded simply as 'Baby Holmes.' How sad. Did Sherlock know, he wondered? And was this the source of his mother's depression, or rather the trigger for her bipolar disorder.

He took the cup of tea back over to the boxes and curious now, opened a file labelled 'Adrienne Holmes, medical.'

And that was when he found it. Right at the back, folded in half, so that it could almost have been missed between the other papers. An invoice from a clinic in the Languedoc, close to Carcasonne, dated October 1994. John walked over to the table, pulled out Sherlock's mother's death certificate and double checked. The invoice was charging for treatment as an inpatient, right up to the day of Adrienne's death.

Which meant that she had still been at the clinic until the day that she died. She had woken up in the clinic, walked out of the door, got into a car and driven away. Where had the car come from, John wondered, and had she been alone in it? Because by four o'clock that afternoon, Adrienne Holmes had been dead at the bottom of a ravine, the car with her.

Intrigued now, John dug through the box of documents that he had set to one side to investigate fully later, but there was little further information. He wanted newspaper clippings, inquest reports, anything that might help him to piece together Sherlock's mother's last few hours. And police reports from the accident, they must exist somewhere surely?

John ran a hand through his hair in frustration. This was the sort of thing that Sherlock was so good at, and he was so bad at. Unfortunately, Sherlock was the one person that he couldn't ask for help at the moment; he would have to ask someone else, preferably someone who knew about police reports and how to access inquest outcomes. John knew exactly what Sherlock would have done; he would have phoned Lestrade. Would Sherlock mind if Greg did the same? He thought not. Sherlock had told him to do whatever he needed to after all, but John stupidly hadn't specifically asked who he could involve. Asking Sherlock himself was out, because even in his current state, he would quickly work out why John needed Greg's help. He would realise that John was investigating his mother's death, and John wasn't keen to open that particular can of worms just yet.

John picked up his mobile and tapped it against his teeth in a way that Rachael, his last girlfriend had always found intensely frustrating. Then he flipped it in the air, hoping that a Sherlock-style twiddle would help his investigative powers, but only succeeded in dropping it, then somehow managed to kick it under the sofa as he lunged to catch it, so that when Mycroft knocked and then entered the room a few seconds later, he was scrabbling under the sofa in a distinctly undignified manner.

'Lose something?' Mycroft asked mildly.

'Phone,' John said, feeling a little like a schoolboy who had been caught doing something that he shouldn't by his house master. 'I was about to phone Lestrade and I - oh it doesn't matter.'

'Police reports?' Mycroft asked.

'Yes. Do you think Sherlock will mind?'

'On the contrary. I think that's an excellent idea.'

'That's not what I asked, Mycroft.'

Mycroft's look of disparagement made John feel like a guilty schoolboy all over again.

'The workings of my brother's mind John are, as ever, a mystery to me,' he said, 'but if you need help accessing police reports, then Greg Lestrade is undoubtably the best person to approach. Ask him to send you the reports without reading them if you wish. Greg Lestrade is a man of priniciple, I'm sure that he would have no difficulty in complying with that request. Now shall I take you on that tour of the grounds?'


	30. Chapter 30

'Whose flat is this, by the way?' John asked, as they walked back in through the garden door an hour later.

'Sherlock's,' Mycroft said, to John's surprise. I arranged for us both to have one as part of the conversion, 'My brother, however, has never been here. Despite that, he refuses to allow me to let it out, or use it as conference accommodation, and so it remains empty. Another puzzle for you.'

'Perhaps he wants to keep something of his past,' John suggested.

'That would be sentiment, John, and as we both know, my brother despises sentiment.'

John shook his head slightly, 'No, Mycroft,' he said with a small smile, 'he pretends to despise sentiment.'

Mycroft considered for a few moments. 'I meant that he lacks sentiment for places and things, not for people,' he said slowly, 'myself excluded, of course.

'What happened, Mycroft?' John asked abruptly, before he had time to contemplate the wisdom of his question. 'Between you and Sherlock I mean. What happened to make things so - difficult, between you.'

'I told you what happened. I deprived him of his liberty and prevented him from making some extremely foolish decisions,' Mycroft replied cooly.

'By having him declared a vulnerable adult.'

'Precisely.'

'Just to clarify. This was during his time in rehab, yes?'

'He tried to discharge himself from the rehabilitation clinic, before he was ready,' John. 'I was advised that if he had left at that time, then he would almost certainly have fallen back into the cycle of addiction and stealing that had led him there in the first place. I was not prepared to permit that to happen.'

'So why the vulnerable adult card? Why not a section? He had the history there after all.'

'I was reliably informed that he was not sectionable at that point,' Mycroft replied. 'That while depressed he was not suicidal and that a mental health assessment would therefore be pointless.'

'So - you had him declared a vulnerable adult,' John said slowly.

'Precisely,' Mycroft said. 'The evidence was all there. Sherlock, by refusing to participate in the minutiae of daily life, had given me all the evidence that I needed. Here was a twenty year old man who could not provide himself with food, clean clothes, or recognise when he was too unwell to look after himself. A man who time and again had to be rescued by his family when he took to his bed and stopped eating for days at a time; who could not or would not wash his own clothes, cook his own meals, and had to my knowledge never ventured into a supermarket. He was, in a word, incapable of looking after himself without assistance.'

'But that wouldn't affect his capacity, surely.'

'There was a capacity assessment done at the same time,' Mycroft told him. 'Sherlock insisted that he could leave the clinic and be entirely independent of me. He was of course, furious at my interference. He was convinced that he could remain free from drugs, find a job and look after himself. Fortunately the panel disagreed, and I was named his guardian.'

'As you still are.'

'As I legally still remain, yes.'

John sat back and ran a hand through his hair. 'That was a hell of a trick to pull, Mycroft.'

'Was it? Do you honestly believe that he could survive without my assistance, John?'

'Now, yes, of course.'

'Back then? Or even when you first met him?'

'He was working, Mycroft. He'd found himself a flat.'

Then at Mycroft's raised eyebrow. 'Oh God, you found him the flat in Baker Street, you had an arrangement with Mrs Hudson, that was why the rent was so low.'

'Correct. Mrs Hudson was genuinely fond of Sherlock, she still is from a distance, as you are aware. But a rent that low in central London would have been more generosity than she could have afforded.'

John groaned. 'And you paid her to look after him too?'

'To clean, to make sure there was food in the fridge, to let me know when he was straying close to danger, certainly.'

'Does he know?' John asked.

'I suspect that he chose not to,' Mycroft replied cryptically, then looking at his watch, 'I must go. I will come and check on your progress later.'

Still reeling from Mycroft's revelations, John forced himself to spend a valuable half an hour at the computer, recording the details that he had learnt on his tour of the grounds, and more importantly from Mycroft himself. He also fired off a quick email to Lestrade, explaining what he needed in general terms, and asking him to phone him when he was free.

Then he sat cross-legged on the floor and attacked the medical file in earnest. Carefully, methodically, making notes as he went. The folder contained a number of letters from the clinic. Mainly invoices and the odd medication list, carefully copied to the Holmes family GP. Of course, the clinic was based in France, so Adrienne would have had to have her medication prescribed by a UK practitioner. And quite a list it was. From the invoices and the medication list, John was able to plot the course of an illness that had spanned nearly two decades. Starting, as he had suspected, after the death of her second child, although knowing what he did of bipolar disorder he suspected that there may well have been other, subtler episodes of depression prior to that. But that had been the trigger to the major illness, of that he had no doubt. The first invoice was dated six months after the birth - and death of that child. Postnatal depression then, or rather postnatal psychosis, judging by the medication list. And then again, two years later, more invoices, suggesting a second episode, another medication list, with a change in antidepressants; then a third episode in 1980, when Sherlock would have been two, neatly three, and suddenly lithium appeared on the medication list for the first time, and John knew for certain that Sherlock's mother had shared his illness.

The sound of a phone ringing made him jump. Not his mobile though, that had no signal, but the phone in the corner of the living area.

'Hello?' he answered it, convinced that it would be a wrong number.

'You know if you want me to contact you, then it helps if you either have phone reception, or leave an alternative contact number; Greg Lestrade's voice was heavy with sarcasm.

'How did you track me down?' John asked.

'I phoned Kate. Your email sounded as if it was urgent, and I knew that she'd know where you were.'

'Good detective work,' John said lightly.

'So tell me about these police reports that you need.'

And that was when John knew that it wouldn't work. Because he had known Greg Lestrade, and worked with him for over five years, and he couldn't give him half the story - easier to let him into the loop, because he knew without a shadow a doubt that that was exactly what Sherlock would have done.'

'I'm investigating the death of Adrienne Holmes in 1994,' he told him. 'She died in France in a -'

'Car accident, yes I know,' Lestrade said slowly.

'Sherlock told you?' John asked, surprised despite himself. Sherlock gave away so little personal information to anyone. He found it odd that he would have told Greg Lestrade about the circumstances of his mother's death.'Mycroft, actually,' Greg said, 'when he was trying to persuade me to let Sherlock work with me, years ago. I asked him where Sherlock's parents were, and Mycroft being Mycroft told me in no uncertain terms that neither of them were in a position to assist him.'

Greg hesitated and coughed slightly. John, well trained by Sherlock in picking up tells realised what he was saying. 'And you did some digging?' he asked. 'Seriously? You tried to investigate the Holmes family?'

'Nothing major,' Greg protested. 'You have to see it from my perspective, John. When I first met Sherlock he was very young and he seemed so - vulnerable. He was so obviously entirely dependent on Mycroft. The parent in me just thought that his own parents should know what was going on - if they were still around. Turns out Mycroft wasn't speaking in euphemisms when he told me that they weren't able to help.'

'So what did you find out?' John asked, wishing that he'd talked to Greg earlier.

'It was a long time ago, but from what I remember, Sherlock's father had some kind of stroke, no indication of foul play there, although it was proposed. What exactly he did for a living other than his more transparent activities, I never entirely managed to work out. There were rumblings at the time that his death had been, let's say, convenient for some people, but from what I understand, there was never any suggestion that his death was anything other than from natural causes.'

'What do you think that he did?' John asked.

'Some slightly shady business dealings I'd say. Viscount Richard Holmes was a procurer John. He supplied people with what they wanted, using his many and varied contacts. On paper it was all above board; as for the rest of it, I decided that digging too deep might well get me into more trouble than I was prepared to take on.'

'You're kidding - what are we talking - guns, diamonds, how shady do you think it was?' John laughed slightly, the very proposition that Sherlock's father could have been involved in some kind of international subterfuge was ridiculous.

'As I said,' Greg continued, and John noticed that there was no hint of amusement in his tone, 'I decided not to dig. I'm not sure that it's relevant, and my guess is that that's one particular skeleton in the family cupboard that Mycroft won't want you digging up.'

'Mycroft has given me free rein.'

'That may be - but be careful John. My own investigating was rewarded by a terse telephone conversation with the Chief Constable who told me in no uncertain terms to let things be.'

'And Sherlock's mother?'

'Car crash in France. The coroner ruled accidental death, but I wasn't quite so sure. Are you sure that this is relevant?'

John sighed. 'I have no idea. But I found an invoice from a clinic in France where Sherlock's mother had stayed before. She was discharged, or rather she left the clinic the morning of her death.'

'When you say clinic, I take it that you're not talking about a health spa.'

'It was a psychiatric unit, Greg. I haven't managed to track down any medical records yet, but judging by the medication lists, it looks as if Sherlock's mother had manic depression.'

'Like Sherlock.'

'Exactly - hang on, have I just told you something that I shouldn't have?'

'It was fairly obvious, John. Well put it this way, he's never been exactly - normal, has he? Add that to his recent illness and - well, I put two and two together. So do you want me to do some digging with my French colleagues? Get hold of accident reports, inquest notes, that sort of thing?'

'Can you?'

'Of course. Anything to help Sherlock.'

As John put the phone down, his head was reeling. If Greg Lestrade, who wasn't medically trained had worked out that Sherlock was bipolar, then why the hell hadn't he? Had he quite simply been too close, or had he chosen not to think about it?

Kate had told him time and time again that there was nothing that he could have done before, that Sherlock hadn't been ready to address it. John mentally shook himself. Now wasn't the time for self-doubt. You couldn't change the past, he knew that. The best way to help Sherlock now was to find out what had happened to his parents. He pulled the box of papers back towards him and started to sort his way back through the next folder.


	31. Chapter 31

Anna arrived at work that day to find a very quiet Sherlock. Chloe had given her a synopsis of the previous days events, and Anna found herself torn between a quiet sense of pride in how well Chloe had managed the nightmare and the subsequent events of the day, and a mild and entirely irrational irritation that she was after all, not indispensible.

Sherlock that day was quiet almost to the point of silence. And compliant, too compliant, very different from the constant arguments of only a few days previously. When he finally woke in the middle of the morning, he sat up, and silently rested his head on his knees.

'Morning,' she said, coming over and resting a hand on his shoulder. 'How was yesterday?'

'Chloe would have told you how it was,' he said after a pause.

'She told me what she thought, I'm asking how you felt about it.'

But he just shook his head. 'I don't want to talk,' he said, throwing back the covers and sitting on the edge of the bed. 'Can I have a shower?'

'Of course,' Anna said frowning slightly. Perhaps the transition from hers to Chloe's care and back again wasn't going to go as smoothly as she had hoped. But then this was the first time that he'd volunteered to have a shower - or to do anything without cajoling since his admission. By lunchtime, she was seriously perturbed. Sherlock had had a shower, got dressed, taken his medication and drawn page after page in his sketchbook, all in as close to silence as he could manage.

The only return to near normality was at lunchtime, when he took the lid off the plate of food that he had been brought, shuddered and silently pushed it away.

'You need to eat, Sherlock,' Anna said. 'I can get you something else, but you have to have something.'

He shook his head.

'No isn't an option, you know that,' she said, sitting on the side of the bed next to his chair. 'What's going on?'

'Nothing's going on,' he said mildly, continuing with his drawing, then frowned and ripped the piece of paper out of the sketchbook before screwing it into a ball.

Anna waited - and waited. After a good three or four minutes she tried a change of tack. 'What are they saying?' she asked.

He shook his head. 'I don't want to talk about it.'

'Perhaps you need to.'

'Perhaps I can't.'

'Sherlock, I want to help.'

'Do you? Why?' he sounded distant, distracted, definitely listening to a voice other than hers.

'Because you are here to get better, and part of getting better is accepting that you need help.'

'I've accepted it,' he said, looking up at her, but avoiding her eyes. 'I'm taking medication, I'm up, I'm dressed, I'm functioning. What else do you want?'

'I want you to eat something.'

'Maybe later.'

'You said that at breakfast.'

'Then get me one of those revolting milkshake things if you must, I'll drink that, I just don't want to eat.'

'Why not?'

He sighed. 'Because the medication that you insist on me taking in such vast quantities is making me feel nauseous. Food is the last thing that I want.'

'It's a common side effect. I can get you something to help.'

'FIne,' he said, turning the page of the sketchbook and starting a new drawing.

'Sherlock -' Anna tried, as she stood up.

'I don't - want - to talk,' he said, glaring up at her. 'Please Anna, just leave me alone.'

'Fine,' she said, frowning slightly, as she went to get him the medication. She had thought that she had seen every variety of strange reaction to illness, but this was a puzzle. What was happening in his head to make him so withdrawn, she wondered, and so different from yesterday? Recovery often followed a pattern - a good day was often followed by a bad day. Perhaps that was all that it was. Somehow she doubted that it could be that simple.

...

Ed Harris arrived promptly at four for his scheduled appointment with Sherlock. He looked a little jaded, Anna thought as she let him into the anteroom from the main corridor. 'Bad day?' she asked conversationally.

'I had to arrange a section for one of my patients,' he said , keeping his voice low so that his voice wouldn't carry to the main room. 'That's never pleasant.'

'To here?' Anna asked.

'No, to The Linderman Clinic. It's taken me most of the day. I'm just grateful that we managed to avoid that with Sherlock. How is he?'

'Quiet,' Anna said meaningfully.

'Ah. That's rarely a good sign.'

'That's what I thought.'

'Then let's see if we can get to the bottom of it,' Ed Harris said, standing back to let Anna swipe him through the inner door to Sherlock's room.'

Sherlock was sitting in his now customary position at the table. He looked tired, Anna thought, but had resisted her suggestions that he should try to sleep for a few hours before his appointment with Ed Harris with a silent shake of his head. He had been drawing for a good five hours now, but had refused to let Anna look at his work; curling his arm around the sketchbook protectively whenever she came near.

'May I see?' Ed Harris asked

Sherlock shrugged and pushed the sketchbook across to him. There were page after page of sketches of an impressive looking stone house, then several pages of drawings of individual rooms; a drawing room, a formal dining room, a bedroom, all devoid of people, almost schematic in their exactness.

'The house that you grew up in?' Ed asked.

Sherlock nodded.'I thought that they might help John,' he said quietly, his finger tracing a pattern on the table, avoiding eye contact.

Ed Harris turned the page to the final picture - a beautifully intricate sketch of a living room that he recognised as 221B Baker Street. The bookcase, the fireplace, the clock on the mantlepiece, the skull, all painstakingly drawn in the finest detail. And there, curled up in an armchair by the fire, reading a book, hair almost hiding her face, was Kate.

'This is good,' Ed Harris said.

'I want to go home,' Sherlock said quietly

'Is that why you drew it?'

'I drew it for Kate.'

Ed Harris nodded. 'Tell me why you want to go home.'

'I'm better - better than I was, anyway. The voices are quieter, almost gone, the depression is lifting, I'm out of bed, I'm functioning. I don't need to be here any more.'

'You're still not eating,' Anna pointed out gently, aware that for her, and for Ed Harris, they were now on familiar ground.

'I told you, the tablets are making me feel nauseous,' Sherlock said, eyes still fixed on the desk. 'I drank the build-up drink instead. I would be better off at home.'

Ed Harris watched him in silence, until Sherlock finally looked up at him.

'What would you do at home?' he asked.

'Sleep mainly,' Sherlock said. 'I can't sleep here.'

Anna looked confused, 'Sherlock, you've slept for hours here,' she said. 'This is the first day that you've managed more than two or three hours awake in a block.'

'But not without nightmares,' Ed Harris said thoughtfully when Sherlock remained silent. 'Do you think that the nightmares would be better at home?'

'Perhaps,' Sherlock said quietly.

'Because of Kate?'

Sherlock gave a small nod.

'What happened when Kate visited last night?' Ed Harris asked, sensing a connection between Sherlock's odd and distracted affect and his conversation with Kate the previous evening.

'We talked about the night on the roof,' Sherlock said, sounding distant and unemotional.

'And she told you that she understood, and you made your peace with it,' Ed Harris said, and Anna suddenly realised what was going on. The sleep that Sherlock was talking aout woukd be permanent. That was what he meant when he said that he coukdn't sleep in the clinic. As his depression lifted slightly, he believed that he had found the will to do what he had attempted before. That was why he wanted to leave. And more, Kate with all of her compassion and understanding had made him believe that she would understand this decision too. In her attempt to support him, she had somehow inadvertently give him a green light to do what only her voice had stopped him from doing before. Dangerous times. She caught Ed Harris' eye and he nodded slightly to show that he understood too.

'Sherlock it would not be safe to allow you to go home,' he said finally. Calm, supportive, but somehow something in his tone left Sherlock in no doubt that he understood what he was asking for and why.

'I would be better at home,' Sherlock said stubbornly.

Ed Harris gave him a long hard look, which Sherlock returned, before looking away, resting his head back against the chair again and closing his eyes.

'Did you really think that you could convince me?' Ed Harris asked.

'I had to try,' Sherlock said.

'This is not the way forward,' Ed Harris said. 'This will get better. Can you believe that?'

A shake of the head, nothing more.

'Tell me about the nightmares,' Ed Harris said, changing the subject. And so Sherlock began to talk about his nightmares. Slowly at first, and then picking up speed, as he talked. Sherlock's dreams fit with what Ed knew of his childhood; dreams of being chased through his empty house, explaining the empty rooms in his drawings. Sometimes there were monsters, sometimes there was his father, with a demon's face, or worse still sometimes Moriarty's face, and sometimes he came into a room to find the monster devouring Kate, and that was the one that would wake him up screaming, His voice broke off as he said this, and Anna could see him struggling to regain control.

'Is what scares you most?' Ed Harris said. 'That something could happen to Kate?'

Sherlock nodded slightly. 'Yes,' he said, so quietly that Anna could barely hear him.

'Do you see the monster's face?' Ed asked.

Another nod.

'And is it your face?'

Sherlock stared and him and then he face crumpled and he buried his face in his hands, shoulder shaking. Anna moved swiftly across the room to comfort him, and he allowed her to, not pulling away, resting his head against her shoulder for a moment.

'You fear that Kate will be harmed, whether directly or indirectly by her association with you,' Ed Harris told him, quietly, once he had calmed a little, and Anna had moved away with a reassuring squeeze of his shoulder.

'Of course,' Sherlock said.

'What do the voices say?'

'That the safest thing for her would be if I removed myself from the equation.'

'Do you believe them?'

Sherlock looked up at him. 'It's simple logic, isn't it? Were I not here, then Kate would not be in any danger. The danger to her comes entirely from her association with me.

'And yet that is a decision that she has a right to make for herself, surely? Tell me, do you believe that she is in danger from you directly also?'

Sherlock frowned and looked away before saying, 'The voices - sometimes, have said things about Kate - and John. They have - suggested things.'

He looked calm know, Anna thought, but from where she was sitting to the side of the table, she could see the figures that he was doodling on the paper. Monsters and smoke and fire.

'What sort of things?' Ed Harris was asking.

'Ridiculous things. That Kate and John are possessed by something else, that they were keeping me prisoner in my flat, creating my illness.'

'Did they tell you to hurt them?'

Sherlock twisted his head away, as if trying to escape the memory. 'I didn't want to,' he whispered,'but staying in control became more and more of an effort.' He sounded tired and a little dazed, Anna thought. She trusted Ed though, and she knew that he needed to get the session to a point where he could wrap things up and leave Sherlock to get the sleep that he so badly needed.

'But you did stay in control, Sherlock. You didn't obey them, and you agreed to an admission - to keep them safe more than yourself, I suspect.'

Another almost imperceptible nod.

'So will you stay?'

'Can you stop the nightmares?' he asked bluntly.

'Nightmares in this context tend to come towards the end of sleep,' Ed Harris explained, 'when the medication has worn off and you are in a natural REM sleep state. We can't stop them with medication, Sherlock, but what you can do is to record them; write them down, draw them and most importantly talk about them with the nursing staff at the time. Tell them anything that you can remember, bring them into the light of day. Once they're recorded in detail then we can discuss them together. Once you understand them, then they are likely to reduce and eventually disappear.'

'I don't want Kate to know,' Sherlock said with a frown. 'Anything else is fine, but not this. I don't want her to know that she is involved in my nightmares.'

'That is your choice, of course, but can you tell me why you don't want her to know?'

'It would worry her. I don't want to worry her.'

'She wants to help, Sherlock.'

'I know, and she does, but not with this.'

'Fine,' Ed Harris repeated with a nod. 'I would suggest then that we leave it there and that you try to sleep. Anna can get you some more lorazepam to help, and I would advise you to take it. Sleep, try to eat, and I will see you again tomorrow.'


	32. Chapter 32

'Will you take some lorazepam?' Anna asked as the door closed behind Ed Harris.

Sherlock nodded and slowly, wearily, pushed back the table and went to lie on the bed, eyes closed, facing away from the door. Wary off leaving him alone, Anna rang the bell for the relief nurse for the day, and asked him to fetch Sherlock some medication. Chloe was on a day off, having given Anna a handover on the telephone that morning, and given the success of the previous day, Anna had felt confident enough to manage Sherlock on her own, a decision that she was realising may well have been premature.

'Don't beat yourself up about this,' she told him as the tablets arrived and he sat up to take them.

'Is it that obvious?'

'You're easier to read than you might like to think,' she told him. 'This is the illness, Sherlock, not you. You don't want to harm Kate or John, of course you don't. Your mind is twisting things, creating the worst horrors that it can imagine.'

'To create my own personal brand of hell. I know,' he said quietly, staring at the contents of the pot of tablets for a good minute before swallowing the lot with the proffered glass of water.

'You could have talked to me, you know,' Anna said mildly. 'I could have helped.'

Sherlock lay down, and closed his eyes. 'I had to try,' he said simply.

'Did you really think that Ed Harris would let you go home?' Anna asked.

'Not for a second,' came the sleepy reply.

...

Anna waited until she was sure that he was asleep, then leaving the relief nurse to watch Sherlock, went to find Ed Harris, who she very much hoped would still be catching up on notes in his office.

'Sleeping?' Ed Harris asked, as he opened the door to her tentative knock.

'Yes.'

'But you're worried.'

'Correct,' Anna said with a smile.'He's certainly a challenge, you were right about that, but that's not the problem. A challenge I can cope with, in fact it makes a refreshing change.'

'So what are you worried about, Anna?'

'Quite simply, I'm not convinced that I'm the right person to look after him.'

'He's certainly not an easy patient.'

Anna shook her head, 'No, it's not that. Don't get me wrong, I like him. He shows a very endearing mix of vulnerability and defensiveness . At times he's almost child-like, and then you get these flashes of unrestrained brilliance and logic. He is - fascinating and I very much suspect that this case will only get more interesting as John does his investigating into the past.'

'You're worried about how he relates to you?'

'Not until today, no. Perhaps he felt more comfortable talking to Chloe yesterday, I'm not sure, but I could hardly get two words out of him today. And if he can't talk to me, then where does that leave us?'

Ed Harris considered for a long moment before saying, 'Anna, you've read his psychological profile. Sherlock Holmes is a man who trusts only a handful of people in the world. The fact that he has allowed you to look after him with such compliance is a marker of how profoundly depressed he was; but now you are starting to see the real Sherlock. And he is abrasive and difficult and suspicious. That he trusts you enough to talk to you even intermittently is an achievement. I am convinced that you are absolutely the right person to take on his care; few others have the intellect and experience to manage him, and you do manage him well. No,' he said, holding up his hand to prevent her from interrupting him with protests, 'let me finish. You do manage him extremely well, and he does trust you. Opening up to anyone doesn't come easily to him, that's all, but I have every confidence that it will come with time.'

'And yet he talks to you in a way that he won't to me.'

'You're forgetting that when I met Sherlock he was profoundly psychotic - and terrified by that. He had John's recommendation of me as a person who he could trust. I looked after John Watson when he returned from Afghanistan, and the fact that I was known, and had helped John to recover was important to him. He told me the first day that I met him that he would have spoken to anyone who could have helped him to find a way out of his psychosis. He was desperate to find a way through it, that is the difference. Now he no longer believes that a way out is possible.'

'Today was a last ditch attempt to prove that he could take back control. Keeping him in an environment like this, when he has to rely entirely on others, to do as he is told, where he is deprived of his liberty, was never going to come easy to him. He had to try to get out, but subconsciously I think that he also wanted to fail.'

Anna shook her head, 'So complex,' she said.

'I need you on board with this, Anna,' Ed was saying. 'Because I suspect that what John Watson will discover will be far from easy. Sherlock needs to know about his past, but he needs our help to stop that past from destroying him.'

'You realy think that it will be that bad?'

'I think that there is a good reason that Sherlock has blotted out much of his childhood; and I don't believe that the ECT is entirely to blame. Interestingly, he told me things during the first phase of his illness which he now has no memory of. In short, his memory of past events is getting worse.'

Anna was intrigued. 'A side effect of the medication do you think?'

Ed shook his head. 'No, I don't think so, rather a side-effect of his illness. He's blocking it out deliberately, Anna.'

'Hence the empty rooms in his drawings.'

'Precisely.'

'And the drawing of Kate?'

'Was meant as both an apology and a goodbye - proof of how much he loves her, I think. He wanted her to have it if his little stunt today had succeeded in convincing me to allow him to leave here.'

'He must have known that would never work.'

'As he said - he had to try. Next he will try and push Kate away, just watch. For Sherlock's sake, I'd take away that sketchbook, Anna. Get him a new one, offer to send those drawings to John Watson as justification for removing that one. He'll want that picture back one day, but if you leave him with it then he'll destroy it, just as he is planning to destroy his relationship with Kate.'

'To protect her?'

'Precisely.'

'So how do we deal with that.'

'I would very much suggest that you contact John Watson - ask for a fax number, or an email address to send him the pictures, and in the process make him aware of what Sherlock has tried to do today, and may try to do.'

'But not Kate?'

Ed Harris shook his head. 'Think about it, Anna. After all that she has been through do you really think that Kate could cope with hearing that not only is Sherlock still actively planning his own death, but that he is doing it in order to protect her? And more, that he is doing that in the belief that she both understands and accepts what he plans to do. Even without the details of the nightmares, which he has forbidden us to discuss with her, that is more information than I think that even she could bear.'

'No, tell John. He can meter it out for her as needed. Sherlock has asked her to go to Scotland with John to investigate what happened in Elmhurst - partly to put some distance between them, I think. Some time apart is precisely what they both need, Kate especially, until we can help Sherlock to unravel this.'


	33. Chapter 33

Big warnings for triggers - mainly for suicide and depression, and a fair bit of angst too. If that's likely to upset you then please skip the next few chapters.

Thank you as ever for reading and reviewing. All comments gratefully received!

* * *

When Anna went to check on Sherlock he was still sleeping, and Mark, the relief nurse on for that day, seemed happy enough to sit with him for a while, allowing Anna time to phone John Watson and tell him about the events of the day.

His phone though, when she rang it, clicked straight into answer phone. She took the opportunity to get a cup of coffee from the canteen, and then tried again with the same result. She left a message asking him to contact her, leaving the clinic number, and then, aware that if he was out of signal he might not get the message for several hours, left her personal mobile number too.

Then, after a brief moment's indecision, she phoned Kate, who she knew must be finishing work soon, to warn her that Sherlock was asleep and was likely to remain so for several hours.

'You're welcome to come and sit with him if you want,' she said. 'But you may well just end up watching him sleep.'

'Has he had sedation?' Kate asked.

'Lorazepam, yes.'

'I knew that yesterday was too good to be true,' Kate said. 'I couldn't sleep for thinking about it last night. At the time, I was glad that he was talking about it, but it felt too neat somehow, as if he was trying to tie up loose ends.'

Anna hesitated for only a second before saying in a way that she hoped was reassuring, 'Good days are often followed by bad days, Kate, you know that.'

'Did he try to discharge himself?'

'He tried to get Ed Harris to let him go home, yes. He knew that we wouldn't let him self-discharge, so he tried to convince us that he was well enough to go home.'

'Idiot,' Kate muttered.

Anna smiled to herself. Kate would be okay, she thought. She knew Sherlock well, she wouldn't be fooled, but she still wanted to talk to John before she said anything to her about her conversation with Ed Harris..

'I'll stay away this evening,' Kate said, 'as long as you're sure that he's okay.'

'He'll be fine, Kate. It's just going to be a long, hard road for him. But Ed Harris isn't worried. He says that this is no more than he expected.'

'Keep him safe, Anna,' Kate said quietly.

'We will. And if he wakes up and wants to see you, then I'll phone you.'

'Thank you. And Anna, can you give him a message for me?'

'Of course.'

'When he says that he doesn't want to see me - can you tell him not to be an idiot and that he's stuck with me?'

Anna was impressed. Ed Harris had obviously underestimated Kate Watson - she knew exactly how Sherlock's mind worked. 'Why do you think he'll do that?' she asked, not wanting to tell Kate that her prediction matched Ed's almost perfectly.

Kate sighed. 'Because he always feels the need to protect me - always has, ever since we started going out he's had this fear that I would become a target because of him. He sent me to self-defence classes, made me learn how to fire a gun, get out of handcuffs, pick a lock, the whole lot.'

'And have you - ever become a target because of him, I mean?' Anna asked curiously.

'Strangely, no. The only time that I have ever been a target, was nothing to do with Sherlock - in fact he was the one who rescued me.'

'A patient?'

'No, an ex-boyfriend.'

'So why do you think that he'll try to push you away?'

'Because under all that bluster, and that hard protective shell, neither of which you've seen the full force of yet, I suspect, he can be very selfless. And because while he lets few people into his life, he would do absolutely anything to protect those that he cares about.'

'I'll bear that in mind,' Anna said. 'And I'll pass on the message, if it comes to it.'

'Oh it will,' Kate said softly, as she put the phone down.

...

John opened the patio doors, enjoying the cold bite of the outside air after the muggy warmth of the central heating. Remembering Greg Lestrade's irritation at being unable to contact him and mindful that he should probably check-in with Kate, he walked round the building searching for a patch of reception on his mobile. Finally the 'No service' message was replaced by one bar, then two. A voicemail message popped up on his screen, blocked number.

He was expecting a message from Kate but instead he heard Anna's voice when he hit the play button, and he found himself smiling just at the sound of it, before forcing himself to listen to what she was saying.

Wishing that he had Sherlock's memory, he patted his pockets for a piece of paper and a pen, but found neither. He had to listen to the message three times before he was sure that he had the number memorised, then dialled it swiftly.

Anna picked up on the third ring.

'Anna? John Watson. I'm sorry to phone you when you're off duty but it sounded urgent.'

'No, it's fine, I wanted you to call. I'm just walking home from the tube, so it's good timing.'

'Sherlock okay?' John asked, wandering over to an ornamental fishpond with a fountain in the middle, and sitting down on the stone rim.'

'What's that noise?'

'Fountain, sorry,' John said. 'I'm still at Sherlock's old house - I'm going to stay over, try to finish going through all the paperwork that I've found.'

'Anything interesting?' Anna asked.

'Tons, not much concrete yet though - I'll fill you in when I get back. But did you know that Sherlock's mother was bipolar too?'

'No,' Anna sounded surprised. 'Does he know?'

'I don't think so, even Mycroft wasn't sure, but I found a load of medication lists and invoices from a French clinic - doesn't look as if there's much doubt.'

'It would make sense. It does often run in families, although nobody's ever managed to fully track down the genetics. What else?'

'She was in the clinic and France until the morning that she died.'

'Ouch.'

'Could have been coincidence.'

'It could, but - what was it, car crash?'

'Yes, how did you know?'

'Sherlock's notes, hang on,' there was the sound of a key in a door and then the sound of footsteps on a wooden floor, then of another lock opening. Flat then, with a shared hallway, and Anna must live on the ground floor. Damn, Sherlock had really twisted his brain - he couldn't stop himself looking for clues, even when he didn't need to.

'Sorry about that,' Anna said, 'You know, I'd never let a mental health patient get in a car and drive the day of their discharge. How long was she in there for?'

'I didn't notice, but I've got the invoice somewhere. Quite a while from what I remember, five or six weeks maybe.'

'Then I definitely wouldn't have let her drive,' Anna said.

'That's what I'm worried about,' John said. 'You think that she killed herself?'

'I think it's a strong possibility,' Anna said, 'Look at what Sherlock - no, sorry..' She broke off.

'No go on,' John said, intrigued. 'You were going to say look at what Sherlock did the night on the roof?'

'Actually no,' Anna said, pausing to consider. 'There's no reason that you shouldn't know, although I wouldn't mention it to Kate. He tried to get Ed Harris to let him to leave the clinic today.'

'Seriously? But what - oh,' he broke off. 'Really?' He asked, 'but he's been so much better.'

'Better enough to come up with another plan it would seem - and again his care for Kate has a large part in that. That's what I mean. You need to get hold his mother's medical notes, John. Find out if she was actually discharged, or if she just walked out of the clinic.'

'Sherlock's going to take it hard,' John murmured, 'if she did kill herself.'

'Better for him to find out now than when he has less support. At least he'll understand. The families of patients who have committed suicide often feel angry, betrayed, they don't understand. Sherlock has been through that thought process. He knows where it comes from; that will help more than you might think.'

'I've already put in a request for the notes,' John said. 'Mycroft has offered to get them translated when they arrived, so hopefully we'll get some answers there. Anyway, your message sounded as if it was important.

What can I do for you?'

'Actually it's more what I can do for you,' Anna said. 'I've got some drawings for you - from Sherlock. Sketches that he's done of the old house. He thought that they might help.'

'Um - great,' John said, trying not to sound surprised. Sherlock drawing? Now here was something new. 'Can they wait until I get back - or...'

'If you give me your email address, then I'll get them scanned and sent to you tomorrow,' Anna said.

'How is he?' John asked, catching something in her tone.'

'Challenging,' Anna said. 'No that's not it, he's - silent. Quiet I can cope with, but today's been something else.'

'Yeah, he does that,' John said. 'Eight days was his record when we shared a flat. Eight days without any conversation other than a grunt and the occasional head shake. I used to go to the supermarket just to get some human interaction.'

Anna laughed, 'So I shouldn't take it personally?'

'Quite the reverse,' John said, 'If he didn't feel comfortable with you, then he'd pretend that everything was fine. He's a good actor when he wants to be, I'll give him that.'

'But that's the odd thing, he was trying to pretend that everything was fine. That was his strategy for trying to get Ed Harris to discharge him.'

'Stupid bastard,' John muttered. 'I though that he'd stopped playing games.'

'I don't think that he wanted it to work though,' Anna said. 'In fact he told me that he didn't think it would work, but that he had to try.'

'But why?'

'To pacify the voices I would imagine.'

'Is he actually taking his medication?' John asked.

'As far as I can tell, yes.'

'I'd check levels,' John said, 'Do a tox screen or whatever. I know that you're good, Anna, but this is Sherlock that we're talking about. Illusion is one of the things that he does best.'

'You think that he's hiding them?'

'I hope not,' John said, but I wouldn't put it past him.

'Then I'll check,' Anna said. 'Thanks for the tip.'

'So was that it?' John asked. 'Did you phone just to get my email address for the pictures? Only I got the impression that there was more to it than that.'

'There is,' Anna said, 'only-' she hesitated for a moment. 'John I know this is going to be difficult, but you can't tell Kate.'

'Go on,' John said calmly.

'Do I have your word that you won't tell her?'

'No,' John said firmly, 'I can't give you that. Kate is a good, good friend, Anna, and no disrespect, but I know her much better than you and Ed Harris do. So no, I won't promise not to tell her. What I will promise is to consider what you have to tell me carefully, and then decide what is best for Kate - and for Sherlock.'

'Sherlock specifically asked that Kate not be told.'

'Hang on - did he ask for her not to be told, or that you didn't tell her.'

'The latter.'

'John chuckled. 'There you go then. If he didn't want her told then he would have asked you not to tell me either. Come on, spit out, Anna, whatever it is.'

'Sherlock's nightmares,' Anna told him. 'They involve seeing Kate being attacked by some kind of monster.'

'Oh,' John said, then pausing to think. 'Did he say that he'd dreamt that before? Only a few weeks ago, when Kate first went back to work, he went for a nap, and woke up screaming Kate's name When he finally calmed down enough to talk, he would only say that it had been a nightmare, and asked me not to tell her.'

'Sounds like the same dream,' Anna said, 'but there's more, John. The monster this time had his face - he's terrified of hurting her.'

'Ouch. Freud would have a field day.'

'I don't think that it needs Freud to work this one out. Like I say, he's terrified that he's going to hurt her, directly or indirectly, by his association with her. He loves her, he depends on her, and yet he feels that for her own protection he should push her away. Hence the dreams.'

'Possibly,' John said non-committally.

'What do you mean possibly?' Anna asked. 'Where are you by the way?

'Outside, it's the only place with reception.'

'You must be freezing!' Anna said. 'Why don't you go back inside and phone me on the landline?'

As he walked back round the building, John realised that he was touched by her concern. Professional relationship, he told himself firmly. besides, Anna had told him early on that her responsibilities in looking after Sherlock extended to looking after those close to him too. That was what she was doing - looking after him. But he couldn't deny that he found her concern - touching.

'That was quick,' Anna said, as she picked up the phone on the second ring.

'I was only round the corner. But picking up where I left off, I think that you're underestimating Sherlock. Besides, he and Kate have been through this before - when they first got it together. Kate's been very definite about the fact that this is her choice. She knows that there might be danger, but she's accepted that risk.'

'But has Sherlock?' Anna asked. 'His illness is a game changer, don't forget. Any decision involves weighing up the evidence for and against a given outcome, looking at the relevant merits of each. His depression, by definition, will cause him to put more weight on the negatives than he would when he was well. I may be wrong, but I think that he'll try to push her away. Kate, for why it's worth, thinks that he'll do that too.'

'Wait, wait,' John said, rubbing his forehead with his free hand, 'I though that you said tht Sherlock didn't want Kate to know.'

'He doesnt want him to know about the nightmares,' Anna said, 'but I phoned Kate earlier to tell her that he was asleep and she might like to postpone her visit, and she predicted that he would try to push her away. I didn't have to say anything.'

'What did she say?' John asked.

'That when he said that he didn't want to see her, then I should tell him that he was an idiot and he was stuck with her.'

John laughed. 'Sounds like Kate.'

'He needs her, John, but if he says that he doesn't want to see her then we can't force him to.'

'Then we'll cross that bridge when we come to it. I'm happy to tell him not to be an idiot if it comes to it, but to be honest I'd be surprised. Anything else that I can help you with?'

'Ed Harris seems to think that some time apart would be good for both of them. Kate especially, I think. She looked tired and stressed when I saw her yesterday. It's been what six weeks now of her - or both of you, living and breathing Sherlock's illness. Take her to Scotland with you, John. Give her a chance to get a bit of distance, and Sherlock a chance to realise how much he needs her.'

'Isn't that a bit devious?' John asked, trying to keep the amusement out of his voice.

'It's sensible, John. Kate needs a break.'

'Yes she does,' John said thoughtfully. 'I'll see what I can do.'

* * *

For anyone interested in Kate's run-in with her ex-boyfriend, and Sherlock's rescue tactics, then its all in Consequences, which is also on here.


	34. Chapter 34

When he woke, he felt oddly calm. The anger of earlier had vanished, and with it the desperate need to escape from these four walls. The curtains were drawn but from the artificial quality of the light just visible at the edges, he could tell that it was night. He tried to remember what time he had fallen asleep; late afternoon perhaps, but it was difficult to tell. Time lost its meaning here.

He rolled over and the nurse sitting at the desk in the corner looked up and smiled at him. 'You okay?' she asked.

He vaguely recognised her from the early days of his illness. Those nightmare days when he could not bear to be awake, when he would be flooded by the blackness as soon as he opened his eyes. When waking brought pain, and then the blessed kiss of lorazepam sliding into his veins and sleep again. Days when he had wished that he could just sleep forever and never wake up.

'I'm Helen,' the nurse was saying. 'I looked after you when you were first admitted, but you probably don't-'

'I remember,' Sherlock cut in.

'Do you need anything?' Helen asked.

'Why are you here?' Sherlock asked bluntly, aware that he was being rude but no longer caring. Kate would have cared. She would have frowned slightly but remained silent, and he would have known that she was trying to fight the temptation to say something; fighting the temptation to try to change him, because she had promised him that she would never do that. But kindness to Kate was such an intrinsic part of her personality, that she struggled with the absence of it in others.

'Anna thought that you might be better with one of us watching you tonight,' Helen said, by way of explanation.

'You mean that she thinks I'm going to do something,' Sherlock said sharply.

'Are you?' Helen asked.

'No,' he replied quietly.

'Would you rather be left alone?'

'Is that an option?' He was aware that he sounded paranoid, but he couldn't help it. His mind was racing - fast, too fast, all over again. He took a few deep breaths and then closed his eyes, shutting out external stimuli as his mother had taught him long ago. Interesting. He had forgotten that. This had happened to him as a child; before his illness, before Elmhust, before his mother died. There were times then when his mind would race too fast, when noises seemed too loud, colours too bright, music too beautiful. His mother had taught him to walk away from it, to find somewhere quiet, to put his hands over his ears and close his eyes and imagine himself somewhere safe and calm until it passed. He must have been what - five or six? Social situations brought these episodes on , he remembered. Too many people, too much noise, not being able to interpret the situation or understand the rules, terrified even then that he would provoke his father's anger. Sherlock, the child that he could rely on only to cause a scene and misbehave.

'Sherlock?' A quiet hand on his shoulder, which he resisted the temptation to shrug off.

'I'm okay,' he mumbled, pushing himself to a sitting position. 'What time is it?'

'Quarter past eleven,' Helen told him, checking her nurse's watch.

'Why are there no clocks in here?' he asked.

'Some patients find them over-stimulating, too much of a reminder of the outside world,' she explained, 'but I can bring one up if you like. She moved to a touch screen pad on the wall opposite his bed and brought up a clock on the wall. 23.17 the clock read. That was better. Night was his favourite time, when his mind worked most freely, when the world seemed most calm. And even in the middle of London, there was a delight in working when the majority the of the population was wasting time in sleep; in solving a case as the sky outside 221b faded from inky blue to pink and then to the pale light of morning; in knowing that all the ends were neatly tied from a good nights's work when others were just starting to wake and stumble sleepily towards the shower.

The voices were whispering again, telling him that he needed to get home, get away from here, but he pushed them away. Shut them in a room and close the door, that was the best way.

'It's too quiet in here,' he said abruptly.

'I can put the television on for you?' Helen offered. 'Provide some distraction from those voices.'

'I didn't say anything about voices,' he snapped, then stopped, closed his eyes and tried to push away the rising panic yet again.

'It's better if you talk about it,' Helen said to him gently. 'We're here to help, Sherlock, but we can't help if you don't talk to us.'

'I can't,' he said tightly.

'You could try?'

He shook his head, the voices rising in their intensity. Whispering all over again.

'How about some medication then? I've got your evening tablets here.'

He shrugged and then nodded. 'I don't want sleeping tablets though, not tonight.'

'That's okay. How about some pericyazine instead?'

He nodded silently, and held out his hand for the medication pot. There was pericyazine in there already, he noticed, and two tablets of haloperidol instead of the usual one.'

'You'd already decided what to give me,' he said, trying to keep the suspicion out of his voice.

'There's no conspiracy in it, Sherlock,' Helen told him. 'The extra tablets were Anna's suggestion, based on how you were earlier.'

He shook the pot and considered the tablets. Pale yellow pericyazine, orange haloperidol and a whole rainbow of other tablets, all of them familiar. But there was a new tablet there, hidden under the others. Pale green with markings that he didn't recognise. He picked it up and turned it over in his fingers. A large 'M' on one side, the markings 'C14' on the other.

'What's this?' he asked.

'Clonazepam. It's an anxiolytic, and it's good for panic attacks.'

'I don't want it,' he said, handing it back to her, as the voices in his head screamed, 'Conspiracy!'

'Because you don't think that you need it?'

'Because I told Anna that I would take the medication as prescribed originally for a week. It's an experiment. I don't want to interfere with that.' The anger was coming back. Why was this woman so stupid, and why was she treating him like a child? If Anna was here she would understand, she would know what to say, know what to suggest. Even the other nurse - Chloe, she helped too in a different way. But he didn't know this woman, didn't like being stuck in a room with her. Didn't like feeling trapped.

He took some slow, deep breaths again. There were two options as he saw it. Either he would manage to distract himself, or he would have a melt-down and end up sedated again. Suddenly he found himself wishing that he could be home, with Kate, just to be able to talk to her, or even to be with her in silence, to be free to do what he needed to in order to distract himself.

Helen's calm voice cut through the silence. 'What do you do at home when you feel like this?'

He looked at her suspiciously. 'I'm not reading your mind,' she said calmly. 'Its a very predictable thought process. You're struggling with being here, you feel trapped, you want to go home. You've already said that once today, so of course you're going to think about it.'

'I would - distract myself,' he said slowly. 'I would try to watch television, I would maybe talk to Kate, and if that didn't work, I'd sleep.'

'Well we can do the television,' Helen said, walking to the control panel and pressing buttons until a panel on the wall opposite slid up to reveal a large television screen.

'Now what else?'

'Kate,' Sherlock muttered. 'I'd talk to Kate, if I could.'

'I can phone her,' Helen said. 'She told Anna anytime. Do you want to talk to her?'

He opened his mouth to say no, but instead nodded, trying to concentrate on the television while Helen took the phone into the corner of the room and he could hear the murmured conversation. Helen's reassurance, her murmured responses to Kate's questions, and then finally she handed him the phone.

'Hello,' came Kate's voice, sounding slightly amused, and just at the sound of her voice he felt his muscles relax. It felt - better, safer, easier, just from that sound.

'Did I wake you?'

'No, I couldn't sleep. I was just making a cup of tea. Helen's going to get you one too. Do you want me to come over?'

'No, it's fine,' he said. 'I just - wanted to talk to you.'

'Bad day?' she asked lightly. 'I would have come earlier, but Anna said that you were asleep.'

'I just - ' he hesitated. 'Yes, bad day.'

'Sure you don't want me to come over?'

'No, not at this time, and not with John away. I don't like to think of you having to go back to the flat on your own later on.'

'So what's up?'

Sherlock was silent.

'Come on, ' she said gently. 'I know you. You hate talking on the phone. Which can only mean that there's something going round and round in your head that you can't get straight and that you need to talk about it.''

'It's all a mess, Kate.' he said quietly.

'No it isn't,' she said. 'It just feels like a mess. But you're getting better.'

'That's not what I mean.'

'So tell me.'

'Maybe later,' he said vaguely. 'Talk to me first will you? Tell me what happened at work today. Tell me about the cases that you saw. Distract me.'

And so Kate began to talk, and as she did, Sherlock wrapped his free arm around his knees, resting his cheek on the cool of the sheet and closed his eyes. Trying to focus on Kate's voice, trying to imagine that he was in 221b with her; that he was sitting in his chair listening to her talking about her day; analysing, commenting, asking questions, while she was curled up on the sofa, cup of tea in hand. He loved trying to work out the patterns that her mind made when she made decisions. Sometimes he thought that what they did was not so very different. Both involved a process of evidence gathering and deduction, but her work involved something more; some sixth sense that she claimed told her when she was about to make the wrong decision. And Sherlock would tell her that such an idea was illogical and ridiculous. That what she was describing was the voice of experience, nothing more, skipping through the usual deductive pathways and giving her an answer based on past cases, knowledge and forgotten memory. Logic and deduction, he would claim. That was what her work entailed, just as his did.

But what really interested him was the details. The things that Kate herself used to miss; who was with the patient, why they were there, what you could tell about their relationship with the patient from what they said or didn't say; how they were dressed, what they have brought with them. The subtext, the hidden stories, that was what interested him more than the diagnoses. Kate, with her characteristic carefulness, would never give away anything that would betray a patient's confidentiality, but the details required none of that. Humanity was fascinating in its complexity, and while Kate learnt how to observe, he learnt to observe her, and her reactions.

He lost track of time as he sat there; listening, talking, trying to forget the silent presence of Helen at the desk, who to her credit was doing her best to be as unobtrusive as possible. But at some point in that long conversation with Kate, a cup of tea appeared silently beside him, and absent mindedly he found himself drinking it. It tasted of home and of better days.


End file.
